THE 


PRESENT  ASPECT 

OF  THE 

|-  Labor  Problem, 

BY 

* ■ 

R.  H eber  Newton. 




Four  Lectures  given  in  All  Souls  Church, 
New  York,  May,  1886. 


New  York  : 

The  Day  Star,  3115  Fourth  Ave. 
1886. 


ve>i  mm 


CONTENTS. 


I.  Labor’s  View  of  the  Situation. 
XX.  Capital’s  View  , of  the  Situation. 

III.  Society’s  View  of  the  Situation. 

IV.  The  Wav  Out. 


0 * h! 


LABOR’S  VIEW  OF  THE  SITUATION. 

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The  events  of  the  past  few  weeks  have  opened  the  eyes  of 
the  most  optimistic  American  to  the  reality  of  the  danger  concern- 
ing which  many  a warning  has  been  given  hitherto  in  vain.  ' Even 
the  sanguine  believers  in  manifest  destiny  realize  at  last  that 
an  industrial  contest  is  upon  us,  out  of  which  may  easily  come 
social  anarchy  in  our  great  centres,  and  a sorer  crisis  for  our  repub- 
lic than  that  through  which  we  have  so  lately  passed.  There  is 
ample  time  for  a peaceful  adjustment  of,  this  threatening  conflict, 
but,  if  we  are  to  have  peace,  there  is  urgent  need  of  dispassionate 
thought  and  calm  counsel  between  the  contending  sides.  The 
danger  in  such  a situation  is  that  interest  will  blind  the  judgment 
and  passion  inflame  the  will,  and  that  from  both  sides  men  will  act 
under  hot  impulse  rather  than  under  the  cool  guidance  of  reason 
and  conscience.  The  duty  of  the  pulpit  is  clear  in  such  an  emer- 
gency. It  must  speak  with  calm  words  on  behalf  of  peace  and  with 
fearless  words  on  behalf  of  justice.  It  must  call  upon  the  better 
natures  of  men  on  each  side  to  go  forth  from  class  lines  and  meet 
midway  to  reason  together. 

You,  my  friend,  who  are  an  employer  of  labor  cannot  but 
come  under  the  natural  bias  of  your  position.  You  would  be  super- 
human if  your  judgment  was  not  colored  by  your  interest,  if  your 
conscience  was  not  clouded  by  your  feeling.  You  see  your  views 
reflected  in  the  opinions  of  your  friends.  You  read  them  stated 
in  the  leaders  of  the  papers  which  you  take.  Everything  tends 
-to  confirm  you  in  your  own  conclusion.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
working  man.  He  looks  at  the  matter  from  the  stand-point  of 
the  employee.  Interest  colors  his  judgment  and  feeling  clouds  his 
conscience.  He  hears  his  own  views  reiterated  in  his  Union  meet- 
ings, and  argued  with  warmth  in  his  labor  journals.  He  is  thus  con- 
firmed in  his  own  one-sided  judgment  of  the  case.  I want,  as 
far  as  my  words  may  reach,  to  bring  employer  and  employee 
together,  to  look  each  upon  the  situation  as  it  presents  itself  to 
the  other,  and  both  upon  the  situation  from  the  point  of  view  of 
society  at  large ; trusting  thus  to  aid  in  the  formation  of  that 
calmer,  truer  judgment  which  will  bring  us  peace  in  righteousness. 

I shall  thus  try  to  set  before  you,  who  are  employers  of 
labor,  the  workingman’s  view  of  the  situation.  You  are  very  apt, 
my  friends,  to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  real  case 
for  the  other  side.  You  are  keenly  aware  of  the  ignorance  of  eco- 


% 


4 


homic  laws  often  displayed  by  labor  to-day,  of  the  dictatorial  and 
despotic  spirit  that  it  manifests  at  times,  of  the  unreasonable  claims 
that  it  frequently  urges,  of  the  folly  of  much  of  its  action.  Pre- 
cisely because  of  this  clear  vision  of  the  real  weaknesses  of  labor’s 
position  you  may  be  blinding  yourself  to  the  back-lying  strength 
of  its  position.  A gentleman  now  engaged  in  teaching  Political 
Economy  in  this  city,  whose  personal  sympathies  are  very  con- 
servative, said  to  me  a few  weeks  since,  at  the  time  of  the  first 
great  street  car  strike : “I  have  not  met  an  employer  of  labor 
who  has  not  taken  unconsciously  a class- view  of  the  situation.”  A 
few  days  since  an  employer  in  this  city  said  distinctly : “ Labor 
has  no  legitimate  ground  to  warrant  any  agitation  such  as  is  dis- 
turbing the  country.  It  ought  to  be  put  down  with  a strong 
hand.”  One  who  keeps  his  eyes  and  ears  open  cannot  fail  to  note 
on  every  side  the  indications  that  hand  is  joining  hand  to  carry 
out  some  such  determination.  I do  not  wonder  that  any  of  yt>u 
should  be  swept  into  such  a current.  Enough  and  more  than  enough 
has  occurred  to  provoke  your  passions  and  to  rouse  the  fighting 
nature  which  is  in  us  all — the  heritage  of  far-back  ages  when  life 
was  ail  a savage  strife.  I pity  from  my  heart  any  man  who  is  to- 
day a large  employer  of  labor,  and  would  not  for  his  wealth  ex- 
change my  modest  income,  if  I had  to  be  booted  with  his  cares  and 
anxieties.  None  the  less,  without  taking  on  any  airs  of  mental  or 
moral  superiority,  and  speaking  from  a position  where  if  my  inter- 
ests are  biased  at  all  they  would  naturally  swing  me  upon  your 
side  of  the  case — I call  on  you  to  stop  and  think  calmly  before  you 
act  strongly. 

I.  You  say : “ Why  do  our  men  treat  us  with  such  suspicion  ? 
We  mean  to  do  squarely  by  them.  We  are  honestly  desirous  of 
bettering  their  condition.  When  we  plan  any  improvement  for 
them  we  find  our  plans  regarded  with  distrust  and  our  overtures 
sullenly  rejected.  They  make  us  feel  at  every  turn  that  they 
have  no  confidence  in  our  veracity  or  honor,  or  in  our  desire  to 
make  a human  relationship  out  of  the  bond  between  us.”  This 
is  often  doubtless  true,  and  being  true  it  is  hard  indeed.  I know 
how  some  of  you  have  planned  large  things  for  your  employees 
and  how  disappointing  has  been  your  experience  at  their  hands. 
But  remember  that  you  are  not  the  only  employers  of  labor  in  the 
land.  There  are,  alas  ! too  many  in  your  position  who  have  not 
your  conscience.  Shylock  is  in  business  still.  And  as  one  Shylock 
stamped  a race  with  opprobium,  so  one  Shylock  to-day  may  brand 
a whole  class  with  the  mark  which  leads  men  to  turn  from  it  in 
distrust  and  fear.  The  principle  of  solidarity  holds  over  all  employ- 
ers of  labor,  and  you  sutler  because  of  others  whose  hearts  are 
made  out  of  Hint  and  whose  consciences  were  forgotten  in  their 
make  up. 

Remember,  still  further,  that  the  old  personal  relationship  of 


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employer  and  employee  has  been  rapidly  disappearing  in  our  midst, 
through  the  development  of  corporate  industry.  Joint  stock  com- 
panies are  dispossessing  private  enterprises  in  all  directions.  The 
shareholders  in  a corporation  have  nothing  to  do  with  its  manage- 
ment. They  know  nothing  of  its  hands,  and  come  into  no  living 
relationship  with  them.  They  may  perhaps  attend  an  annual 
meeting  and  vote  the  right  ticket,  and  then  all  their  duties  are 
discharged,  except  that  of  drawing  the  quarterly  dividend.  The 
management  of  the  business  falls  upon  a superintendent,  who  has 
necessarily  a very  large  liberty,  and  who,  if  he  be  so  disposed  can 
become  a great  tyrant,  without  the  stockholders  knowing  anything 
about  it.  These  superintendents  are  often  smart,  sharp,  poshing 
men,  who  by  reason  of  these  qualities,  which  make  of  them  efficient 
administrators  in  our  times  of  fierce  competition,  are  apt  to  become 
hard  masters  of  the  men  under  them.  The  employees  cannot  get 
the  ears  of  the  directors  of  the  company — since  they  know  that 
any  whisper  of  discontent  may  lose  them  their  positions.  Read 
the  testimony  of  intelligent  workingmen  before  either  of  the  great 
Congressional  committees,  and  you  will  find  that  this  is  a serious 
factor  in  the  situation.  In  one  of  the  manufacturing  towns  of  New 
England  there  is  a factory  known  as  “ Hell’s  Mills  ” — a sufficiently 
suggestive  title.  On  one  occasion,  when  the  hands  had  struck 
for  an  increase  of  ten  per  cent,  of  their  wages,  the  superintendent 
held  in  his  pocket  an  order  of  the  Board  of  Managers  authorizing 
him  to  grant  the  increase ; which  he  withheld  until  he  forced  the 
men  to  terms,  and  thus  saved  to  the  company  ten  per  cent,  addi- 
tional profits.  This  is  the  sort  of  man  that  is  stirring  up  trouble 
in  many  an  unsuspected  quarter,  and  envenoming  the  attitude  of 
labor  toward  capital.  One  “Hell’s  Mills”  is  enough  to  turn 
thousands  of  workingmen  into  demons. 

II.  You  complain,  my  friend,  of  the  loss  of  interest  in  their 
work  shown  by  your  employees.  This  is  doubtless,  to  a consider- 
able extent,  the  fault  of  labor,  about  which  I shall-  have  somewhat 
to  say  next  Sunday.  But  is  it  wholly  labor’s  fault  that  it  is  losing 
interest  in  its  tasks  ? 

Consider  the  change  that  has  come  over  the  conditions  of  labor 
and  the  nature  of  many  of  its  tasks.  In  the  olden  time,  the  weaver 
sat  in  his  little  home  with  his  family  around  him,  blithely  joining 
in  his  labor.  He  could  readily  enough  work  long  hours  and  n3t 
grow  discontented.  Now  he  leaves  his  home  early  and  spends  the 
daylight  in  a huge  factory,  amid  its  din  and  clangor,  separated 
from  his  family,  or  perhaps  still  worse,  finding  them  with  him  in 
one  of  these  great  barracks  of  industry — even  the  little  children, 
who  should  be  at  school,  having  some  task  which  they  needs  must 
do  to  eke  out  the  support  of  the  family. 

Of  old  the  artisan  was  master  of  his  craft.  He  made  some- 
thing. He  began  a process  which  he  finished.  Now  the  factory 


hand  does  a little  bit  of  a job  over  and  over  again — a fractional 
part  of  a process  which  he  neither  begins  nor  completes,  and  which 
lends  him  no  joy  of  the  intelligent  craftsman.  He  once  was  a 
workman,  fashioning  with  his  own  hands  the  watch  into  perfected 
shape.  Now  the  machine  is  the  true  workman,  taking  the  raw 
materials  and  turning  out  the  finished  watch.  The  brains  are  in 
the  machine.  The  man  is  but  the  living  tender  of  the  steely 
monster  who  has  robbed  him  of  his  brains  and  stolen  from  him 
the  joy  that  comes  from  their  rightful  exercise  in  making  things. 

Of  old  the  workingman’s  relationships  were  settled  and  contin- 
uous. There  was  time  for  warm  personal  bonds  to  knit,  and  for 
trust  and  loyalty  to  make  an  esprit  du  corps  in  the  establishment. 
In  Nuremberg  there  was,  three  hundred  years  ago,  a family  of  the 
name  of  Sach,  distinguished  as  manufacturers  of  Dutch  metal.  They 
had  then  in  their  employ  certain  workmen  of  the  name  of  Schmidt. 
To-day  the  same  business  is  conducted  upon  the  same  spot  by  the 
descendants  of  the  family  of  Sach,  and  among  the  employees  are  to 
be  found  descendants  of  the  family  of  Schmidt.  This  was  the  old 
order,  under  which  a beautiful  loyalty  was  possible.  Contrast  with 
it  our  nomadic  industry.  Factories  passing  from  one  hand  to 
another,  their  employees  changing  all  the  time — about  as  rapidly 
as  our  domestic  retinues,  in  which  the  new  system  of  hiring  by  the 
hour  will  soon  come  into  play — and  can  you  wonder  that  the  old 
loyalty  has  gone,  and  with  it  the  old  pfide  in  work  well  done,  the 
old  interest  in  work  at  all  ? 

Go  down  in  imagination  into  the  lower  grades  of  labor;  realize 
what  the  conditions  are  under  which  their  tasks  are  wrought,  how 
utterly  monotonous  and  unintelligent  their  occupations,  and  cease 
to  wonder  at  the  loss  of  interest  which  you  find. 

III.  You  say  again  : “Our  workingmen  are  well  enough  off,  if  they 
only  knew  it.”  Your  skilled  workmen  doubtless  are  often  well  off 
for  wage  workers.  Skilled  labor  in  this  country  is  probably  paid 
higher  than  in  any  other  country  of  the  world.  Your  answer  to  its 
complaints  is  fair  enough,  as  far  as  it  goes.  But  now  about  the 
unskilled  labor  of  the  country  ? If  you  examine  the  last  United 
States  census,  you  must  have  noted  the  rather  startling  fact  that 
the  average  wage  of  the  working  people  of  the  land  is  about  three 
hundred  dollars  per  annum.  How  far  does  that  go  toward  the 
support  of  a family  ? Every  man  who  wants  to  be  .informed  as  to 
all  the  facts  of  the  situation  ought  to  read  the  late  reports  of  two 
of  our  great  bureaus  of  labor — the  report  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bureau  and  the  report  of  the  New  York  Bureau — upon  the  condi- 
tion of  working  women  in  Boston  and  New  York.  There  are  cool 
statements  of  facts  therein  which  are  painfully  impressive.  The 
Chief  of  the  Connecticut  Labor  Bureau,  Professor  Hadley,  gives  us 
the  reasons  for  concluding  that  our  usual  estimates  of  wages  in  this 
country  tend  to  err  upon  the  optimistic  side.  The  Pennsylvania 


7 


Bureau  of  Statistics  shows  that  in  some  instances  the  nominal  wages 
are  in  excess  of  the  actual  wages  by  60  per  cent.  An  examination 
of  the  reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  shows  a 
difference  of  from  20  to  50  per  cent  in  the  estimate  of  wages  given 
by  employers  and  by  employees. 

Whatever  the  facts  may  be,  we  must  remember  that  wages  are 
determined,  not  by  their  nominal  amount,  but  by  their  relative  value 
— their  purchasing  power.  Despite  of  Mr.  Evarts’  dictum  in  the 
Consular  Keports  on  the  state  of  labor  in  Europe,  every  one  knows 
that  the  prices  of  many  necessities  are  much  higher  here  than  in 
Europe,  so  that  workingmen  do  not  find  themselves  nearly  so 
well  off  in  coming  here  as  they  had  expected.  And  then,  further, 
you  must  remember  that  the  social  wants  of  our  workingmen  are 
greater  than  those  of  labor  in  other  lands.  Here  is  where  the 
'shoe  pinches. 

IY.  But  you  say : “ Our  workingmen  are  certainly  better  off 
now  than  formerly.”  If  you  refer  to  a short  period  of  time  I find 
authorities  again  differing  widely.  Mr.  Atkinson  says  that  in 
Massachusetts,  within  twenty- five  years,  the  wages  of  cotton  mill 
operatives  have  increased  37  per  cent.,  those  of  average  mechanics 
21  per  cent,  and  those  of  skilled  mechanics  33  per  cent.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  the  United  States  census— which  Professor  Hadley 
thinks  our  most  reliable  authority — gives  a drop  of  25  per  cent, 
in  wages  during  the  decade  of  1870-80.  The  testimony  of  working- 
men in  different  industries  as  given  by  the  New  Jersey  Labor  Bureau, 
indicates  a downward  tendency  in  wages.  Let  me  give  you  a few 
samples  of  these  reports.  Locksmith,  Newark  : “ In  former  years  I 
accumulated  considerable,  but  now  I cannot  ‘make  a cent  above 
expenses.”  Weaver,  Gloucester  : “We  have  had  a reduction  of  10 
per  cent,  and  another  of  15  per  cent,  in  a year.”  Jeweler,  Canada : 
“ Could  get  along  before  the  war,  making  from  $15  to  $20  weekly. 
Now  I get  but  $6  or  $7.”  Silk-worker,  Paterson  : “ Wages  have 
been  reduced  50  percent,  in  three  years.” 

Do  you  then  mean,  my  friends,  that  labor  is  better  off*  now 
than  of  old  ? Certainly  it  ought  so  to  be,  with  the  astonishing 
advance  which  our  civilization  has  made.  Unquestionably  so  it  is, 
in  many  respects*  The  poorest  workingman  to-day  enjoys  hosts  of 
advantages  from  civilization  which  the  richest  could  not  have 
had  a few  centuries  ago.  The  direct  benefits  of  civilization  for  him 
are  enormous.  He  is  better  housed  on  the  whole,  and  certainly 
is  better  fed  ; his  length  of  life  is  increased ; he  is  not  nearly  so 
liable  to  the  dreadful  diseases  which  formerly  preyed  upon  him  ; his 
earnings  are  ordinarily  secured  for  him  ; he  lives  amid  the  manifold 
privileges  which  are  now  the  common  rights  of  all ; and  he  has  an 
education  such  as  only  a few  scholars  then  enjoyed.  The  direct 
benefits  of  civilization — the  increase  of  his  wages,  the  lessening 
of  his  work  and  the  bettering  of  the  conditions  of  his  work — are  by 


8 


no  means  so  clear.  You  have  probably  read  the  “ Progress  of  the 
Working  Classes  in  the  Last  Half  Century,”  by  the  President  of 
the  British  Statistical  Society.  If  we  can  rely  upon  its  figures,  the 
workingman  has  no  case  at  all  on  this  point.  But,  unfortunately, 
figures  are  notoriously  unreliable,  and  one  has  only  to  prod  a few 
of  these  roseate  tables  with  some  sharp  questions  to  discover  how 
inconclusive  they  really  are.  In  the  Chair  of  Political  Economy  at 
Oxford,  certainly  a sufficiently  conservative  institution,  there  is  to- 
day one  of  the  leading  authorities  in  his  department.  Prof.  Thorold 
Bogers  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  in  real  wages  the  workingman 
of  the  fifteenth  century  was  better  off  than  the  workingman  of  to- 
day. The  present  movement  for  a reduction  of  a day’s  work  to 
eight  hours,  according  to  this  high  authority,  is  simply  an  endeavor 
to  get  back  to  what  was  once  the  normal  day’s  work. 

“ This  concerns  England,”  you  say.  True,  but  in  the  increasing 
interrelationship  which  is  taking  place  among  all  lands,  the  state  of 
labor  in  one  land  affects  directly  the  state  of  labor  in  another. 
American  labor  is  inevitably  tending,  by  natural  causes,  to  the  level 
of  European  labor,  except  in  so  far  as  other  factors  are  working  to 
counteract  this  tendency. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  saved  from  the  conditions  which  have 
so  dreadfully  depressed  labor  in  the  old  world.  Those  conditions, 
however,  are  rapidly  reproducing  themselves  here.  We  have  reached 
the  limit  of  available  free  land,  We  are  beginning  to  feel  a sense  of 
over  population.  Our  labor  market  is  being  over-stocked.  The 
whole  world  is  becoming  one  open  market  in  which  labor  anywhere 
must  compete  with  labor  everywhere.  We  have  been  distinctly 
warned  through  our  Consular  Reports  that  labor  in  this  country 
must  expect  to  accept  the  conditions  of  the  old  world.  And  in  the 
old  world,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  good  reason  to  suspect  that 
the  condition  of  labor  is  in  some  respects  no  better  off  than  some 
centuries  ago.  We  have,  however,  as  yet  ho  sufficient  data  from 
which  to  generalize  assuredly  upon  this  question. 

This  much  seems  clear  to  me,  that  the  tide  has  turned — that 
the  low  water  mark  of  labor  was  reached  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  that  a counter-current  has  been  gathering  headway,  making 
against  the  unfavorable  tendencies  of  our  system  to  which  I have 
referred,  and  that  skilled  labor  is  steadily  rising. 

The  general  question  is  not  so  much  as  to  whether  labor  is 
better  off  than  of  old,  but  as  to  whether  it  shares  proportionately  in 
the  enormous  advance  of  our  century.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize 
what  a stupendous  stride  forward  the  western  world  has  taken  in 
our  century.  Look  at  the  development  of  machinery!  Since 
1870,  in  the  United  States  machinery  has  doubled  the  productive 
power  of  our  people.  This  represents  an  increase  of  22,000,000 
man  power.  On  every  hand,  the  processes  which  were  formerly 
carried  on  by  hand  are  now  being  performed  by  mechanism.  If 


9 


one  could  have  looked  ahead  at  the  beginning  of  our  century  and  con- 
templated this  enormous  transformation,  how  natural  would  have 
been  the  sanguine  expectation  that  the  condition  of  labor  would 
be  lightened  by  this  change  beyond  anything  known  in  history* 
Has  it  been  so  ? Undoubtedly,  labor  has  entered  into  the  benefit 
of  machinery,  by  the  cheapening  of  prices  and  by  being  relieved 
from  many  of  its  more  arduous  tasks  ; but,  take  it  all  in  all,  can 
we  dispute  the  judgment  of  so  cool-headed  an  authority  as  John 
Stuart  Mill?  “ Hitherto  it  is  questionable,”  he  wrote  in  his  great 
work  on  Political  Economy,  “if  all  the  mechanical  inventions  yet 
made  have  lightened  the  day’s  toil  of  any  human,  being.  They  have 
enabled  the  same  population  to  live  the  same  life  of  drudgery  and 
imprisonment  and  an  increased  number  of  manufacturers  and  others 
to  make  fortunes.”  Professor  Huxley  says  that  the  7,500,000 
workers  in  England  can  produce  as  much  in  six  months  as  would 
have  required  one  hundred  years  ago  the  entire  working  force  of 
the  world  for  one  year.  Does  anybody  imagine  that  they  have  en- 
tered into  their  proportionate  share  of  this  tremendous  gain  of 
productive  power  f 

The  increase  of  wealth  in  our  century  has  been  something 
stupendous.  In  Europe  and  the  United  States,  wealth  has  in- 
creased since  1850  three  times  faster  than  the  population.  Accord- 
ing to  Mulhall,  since  1830  Great  Britain  has  almost  trebled  her 
wealth,  France  has  quadrupled  hers,  and  the  United  States  has 
multiplied  its  wealth  sixfold.  At  present  we  are  growing  nearly 
$4,000,000  richer  between  each  sunrisl  and  sunset.  Does  any  one 
again  imagine  that  labor,  as  a whole,  has  shared  proportionately 
in  this  astonishing  increase  of  wealth  ? If  it  were  so  how  could 
there  be  the  present  discontent  f If  we  had  had  a reasonable  amount 
of  scientific  statistical  study,  it  ought  to  be  a simple  thing  to 
find  out  what  is  the  relative  proportion  of  profits  and  wages ; 
but  if  you  try  this  sum  in  arithmetic  you  must  have  clearer  brains 
than  mine  if  you  do  not  get  muddled.  From  your  point  of  view  it 
looks  very  clear  doubtless.  Mr.  Giffin  and  other  strong  statisticians 
claim  that  an  increasing  part  of  the  profits  of  industry  are  going 
to  labor.  Mr.  Atkinson  says  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  wealth  pro- 
duced in  manufactures  goes  to  labor  in  wages,  and  only  10  per 
cent,  to  capital  as  profits.  The  Connecticut  Labor  Bureau  gives 
only  5 per  cent,  of  profits  to  capital.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
different  manipulations  of  these  figures  are  possible.  The  author 
of  “ Man’s  Birthright,  or  the  Higher  Law  of  Property,”  by  no  means 
a socialistically  inclined  writer,  claims  that  capital  makes  $1.08 
on  every  dollar  paid  out  in  wages  ; averaging  36  per  cent,  on  its 
investment.  Mr.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  the  head  of  our  National 
Bureau  of  Labor,  and  for  years  the  head  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bureau  of  Labor,  when  on  the  stand  before  the  Congressional  Com- 
mittee on  Education  and  Labor,  gave  it  as  his  conclusion  that  in 


10 


certain  industries  the  employer  gets  $98  profit  on  each  hand, 
who  receives  an  average  wage  of  $364.  If  he  be  right,  then  there 
is  clearly  room  in  such  industries,  when  conducted  on  a large  scale, 
for  a considerable  increase  of  labor’s  share  without  hurting  capital. 

Our  census  studies  are  so  manifestly  imperfect  that  it  is  utterly 
rash  to  make  any  sweeping  generalizations  on  the  data  now  before 
the  country.  But,  if  you  are  candid,  you  must  admit,  my  friends, 
that  labor  clearly  has  a case  worthy  of  being  brought  into  court, 
a case  which  must  be  met  by  calm  reasoning  and  by  clear  figures. 
If  the  employer’s  books  could  be  opened  to  labor,  there  ought 
soon  to  be  a better  understanding.  The  late  Professor  Fawcett, 
who  was  thoroughly  conservative,  wrote  as  follows  : “ If  any  one, 
a quarter  of  a century  since,  could  have  foreseen  all  that  was  about 
to  take  place  ; if  he  could  have  known . that  trade  was  soon  to  be 
trebled  ; that  railways  would  be  taken  to  almost  every  small  town 
in  the  kingdom  ; would  it  not  have  appeared  absolutely  incredible 
that  all  these  favorable  agencies  should  have  produced  so  little  effect 
that  it  may  now  be  fairly  disputed  ivhether  the  poverty  of  the 
poor  has  been  perceptibly  diminished  ? There  has,  no  doaibt,  been 
an  unprecedented  accumulation  of  wealth,  but  this  wealth  has 
been  unhappily  so  distributed  that  the  rich  have  become  much 
richer,  ichilst  the  poor  have  remained  as  poor  as  they  ivere  before .” 
Even  the  optimistic  Mr.  Giffin  is  forced  to  confess  : “ No  one  can 
contemplate  the  condition  of  the  masses  of  the  people  without 
desiring  something  like  a revolution  for  the  better.”  One  has  but 
to  study  the  development  Qf  New  York  to  realize  the  truth  of 
the  matter.  Millionaires  have  multiplied  in  our  midst,  in  a century, 
from  a handful  to  several  hundred.  To  be  a plain  millionaire  now 
is  not  at  all  to  be  a wealthy  man,  as  New  York  counts  wealth.  On 
the  other  hand,  look  at  the  squalor  of  poverty  in  the  midst  of 
which  the  largest  portion  of  our  people  live.  Here  labor  sees  the 
situation  in  the  strongest  lights  and  shadows. 

The  revolution  in  industry  and  trade  that  has  been  wrought 
by  the  inventions  of  our  century  has  played  into  the  hands  of  the 
powers  already  commanding  the  situation — brains  and  wealth.  It 
is  natural  that  it  should  have  been  so.  It  argues  no  diabolical  sel- 
fishness on  the  part  of  either  brains  or  wealth  that  so  it  has  been, 
but  simply  the  average  selfishness  natural  to  us  all  on  the  part 
of  those  who  had  a chance  and  then  used  it.  When  the  tide  turns 
it  turns  for  all  the  craft  in  the  river,  but  it  makes  an  enormous 
relative  difference  where  your  boat  may  be  at  the  turn  of  the 
tide.  If  you  lie  by  the  shore  where  the  tide  makes  first,  and  the 
favoring  breeze  strikes  you  there  while  it  is  calm  yet  over  on 
the  ebb  shore,  you  will  gain  an  enormous  lead  upon  your  fellows. 

Y.  But  you  say : “ Whatever  the  condition  of  labor  it  is  its  own 
fault.”  To  a certain  extent,  undoubtedly,  it  is  so,  as  I shall  seek 
to  point  out  next  Sunday,  but  this  by  no  means  exhausts  the  case. 


li 


What.  I have  already  said  points  to  the  fact  that  there  are  other  and 
far  larger  factors  at  work  in  the  problem  than  mere  laziness,  and 
ignorance,  and  waste.  Our  system  is  working  against  labor,  in 
some  very  serious  respects.  The  growth  of  population  is  handicap- 
ping labor.  Were  it  ever  so  energetic  tad  intelligent  and  thrifty, 
it  would  have  everywhere  a harder  struggle,  because  everywhere 
the  labor  market  is  feeling  the  pressure  of  an  over-  supply  of  hands 
for  the  work  which  there  is  capital  enough  to  undertake.  Machin- 
ery is  dispossessing  labor  from  one  field  after  another  at  an  alarm- 
ing rate.  The  population  of  England  and  the  United  States 
together  equals  some  80,000,000  to  90,000,000,  but  measured  by  the 
productive  power  of  machinery  these  two  countries  alone  have 
to-day  a population  of  1,000,000,000.  This  represents  the  real 
extent  of  the  crowd  in  the  labor  market.  Machinery  is  pushing  men 
increasingly  aside  and  substituting  the  labor  of  women  and  children. 
Women  work  on  the  average  for  one-half  the  wages  of  men,  and 
children  for  one-third  those  wages.  How  portentous  then  is  the 
fact  that,  whereas  our  increase  of  labor  at  large  between  1870 
and  1880  was  52  per  cent.,  the  increase  of  child  labor  in  the  same 
period  was  98  per  cent  “ A man’s  foes  shall  be  those  of  his  own 
household.”  This  is  coming  to  pass  literally,  as  men’s  wives  and 
children  are  called  into  the  places  which  they  themselves  have 
hitherto  filled.  There  is  thus  massing  in  every  labor  market  in  the 
world  a constantly  increasing  body  of  unemployed  or  partially 
employed  men,  ready  to  bid  down  wages  in  every  department.  For 
every  place  vacated,  there  are  a dozen,  if  not  a hundred,  ready  to 
step  in.  This  is  the  growing  danger  which  labor  feels  with  a 
shudder. 

Our  industrial  system  runs  in  fits  and  starts.  A spell  of 
feverish  activity  produces  a reaction,  in  which  mills  close  and 
factories  shut  down,  and  labor  drops  its  work,  of  necessity,  and 
enforced  idleness  consumes  the  fruit  of  months  of  toil.  This  was 
not  so  of  old.  It  is  a peculiarity  of  our  modern  system.  It  is 
one  of  the  results  of  our  enormous  development  of  productive 
power  unsystematized  and  accompanied  by  an  unequal  distribution 
of  its  rewards.  There  is  no  real  over-production.  The  mere  idea 
is  an  absurdity.  Over-production  of  wheat,  while  tens  of  thousands 
of  men  stand  hungry,  unable  to  buy  flour  ? Over-production  of 
clothes,  while  tens  of  thousands  go  half  clad,  shivering  in  the 
cold  and  hiding  their  shabbiness  from  the,  eyes  of  their  fellow 
men  ? If  you  have  enough  necessities,  are  your  higher  wants 
supplied?  Relative  over-production,  of  course,  there  is  wherever 
there  is  a glut,  but  that  really  means  lack  of  power  to  consume — 
that  is,  the  power  to  buy  things  that  are  needed.  Were  there  any 
equable  distribution  of  the  wealth  that  exists  to-day,  from  myriads 
of  homes  men  and  women  would  go  forth  at  once  and  buy  the 
things  that  they  need,  for  body  or  mind — bread  or  books,  clothes 


12 


or  pictures,  and  the  biggest  boom  would  be  started  that  the  coun- 
try has  ever  known.  Over-production  in  wealth,  when  the  total 
annual  wealth  of  our  country  if  equally  divided,  would  only 
leave  to  each  man,  woman  and  child  50  cents  a day ! The  greatest 
curse  of  our  industrial  system  to-day  is  this  periodicity  of  stagna- 
tion, in  which  everything  comes  to  a standstill ; in  which,  while 
rich  men  live  on  their  interest,  poor  men  eat  up  their  little 
principal  of  savings,  and  then  grow  fierce  with  the  madness  of 
hunger. 

I am  astonished  at  nothing  in  our  business-life  so  much  as  the 
absence  of  an  earnest,  determined  endeavor  on  the  part  of  our  men 
of  brains  to  find  the  causes  of  these  chronic  crises  and  hard 
times,  and  then  set  upon  the  track  of  some  remedy  therefore. 
Were  there  any  serious  endeavor  to  systematize  production,  now 
carried  on  in  the  helter-skelter  scramble  of  individual  greed,  things 
would  soon  better  with  us  in  this  respect.  Here  is  a magnificent 
work  for  our  industrial  and  trade  associations. 

It  is  the  uncertainty  gendered  by  these  recurring  hard  times 
which  indisposes  poor  men  to  habits  of  thrift  and  stays  the  de- 
velopment of  labor.  Of  old  the  worker  felt  reasonably  sure  of  his 
future.  Now  the  average  worker  knows  not  what  a day  may  bring 
forth.  The  wolf  is  ever  growling  behind  bis  door.  Mencius,  the 
great  Chinese  sage,  three  hundred  years  before  Christ,  taught  that 
uncertainty  as  to  the  means  of  existence  is  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant factors  in  the  demoralization  of  a people.  There  is  a lesson 
for  us  in  this  sagacity  of  “ the  heathen  Chinee.” 

And  then,  not  to  pursue  the  matter  further  in  detail,  the 
tendency  to  concentration  of  population  in  our  towns  and  cities, 
our  imperfect  and  corrupt  government,  Municipal,  State  and  Na- 
tional, our  crude  and  well-nigh  barbaric  methods  of  taxation,  our 
special  legislation,  partial  to  wealth,  our  grotesquely  inadequate 
system  of  education  for  the  people,  which  provides  in  the  common 
schools  for  well-nigh  everything  but  the  most  common  need  of 
the  common  people — industrial  training — these  and  many  other 
factors  of  our  social  condition  enter  into  the  problem,  combining  to 
put  down  labor  on  the  minus  side. 

Above  all  and  back  of  all,  we  come  up  everywhere  to  the  prob- 
lem of  rent.  As  Prof.  Thorold  Rogers  shows,  this  is  the  one  point 
in  which  most  signally  labor  stands  at  an  increasing  disadvantage 
in  civilization.  In  every  land  there  is  a steady  tendency  in  the 
direction  of  increasing  rent.  This  prime  necessity  is  eating  more 
and  more  into  the  incomes  of  the  poor  and  of  the  middle  classes 
of  people.  Listen  to  the  murmurs  of  discontent*  as  they  rise  in 
every  country,  and,  under  all  the  changiiig  conditions  of  life,  you 
will  hear  this  one  growl  against  the  increasing  exactions  of  land. 
Without  a footing  in  the  soil  the  workman  cannot  really  be  inde- 
pendent, since  he  must  sell  his  one  ware — labor — at  any  price,  in 


13 


\ 

order  to  live.  He  must  be  found  in  work.  Freedom  of  contract 
under  such  conditions  is  a moc1  ery. 

Here,  then,  is  a complication  of  conditions  working  against 
labor  which  makes  childish  the  optimistic  talk  that  one  hears  on 
every  hand.  When  labor  has  taught  itself  to  be  energetic,  intelli- 
ligent  and  thrifty,  it  will  then  simply  have  prepared  itself  to  grapple 
with  the  forces  in  our  industrial  system  which,  while  working  for 
it  as  a part  of  civilization  at  large,  are  yet  working  against  it  sorely 
in  special  ways.  The  problem  is  too  large  for  any  man  to  solve 
to-day.  All  the  more,  my  friends,  on  you,  who  represent  the  brains 
and  the  wealth  of  the  country,  lies  the  urgent  duty  of  meeting 
labor  calmly  and  reasonably,  for  a comparison  of  views  and  for 
a study  together  of  the  problem  which  in  the  long  run  is  your  prob- 
lem as  well  as  its  problem. 

VI.  But  you  say  again  : “ Granting  all  this,  it  cannot  be  helped. 
Natural  laws  are  working  these  conditions,  and  it  is  vain  to  seek  to 
oppose  them.”  It  is  easy,  my  friends,  for  one  who  is  well  off  to 
talk  thus.  “ Put  yourself  in  his  place  ” — the  place  of  the  man 
who  is  standing  sullenly  idle  in  the  market  without  work,  who 
has  used  up  the  hard-earned  savings  of  months,  whose  wife  and 
babies  are  at  home  hungry.  Would  you  thus  calmly  sit  down 
and  say,  “ it  can’t  be  helped  ? ” If  I know  you,  with  your  clear  grit, 
you  would  be  more  apt  to  clinch  your  fist  and  take  a great  oath 
that  it  should  be  helped  somehow  or  other.  Now  these  men 
are  of  like  passions  with  yourselves,  and  are  coming  to  much  the 
same  conclusion  ; and  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  sullen,  bitter,  dog- 
ged determination  that  one  finds  on  every  hand,  which  is  simply 
incipient  anarchism.  Such  a state  of  mind  is  the  powder,  which 
only  needs  a match  to  set  it  off.  If  I stood  in  such  a position  and 
believed  that  it  could  not  be  helped,  I should  quickly  lose  all  faith 
in  a living  God,  and  when  that  faith  fell  from  me  it  would  not 
take  much  to  madden  me  and  make  me  ready  for  the  worst.  That 
is  the  process  of  development  of  demons  which  our  comfortable, 
easy-going  political  economy  is  forcing  forward.  Dangerous  classes  ! 
I do  not  only  find  them  in  the  slums,  but  in  the  chairs  of  political 
economy  and  the  seats  of  enormous  wealth,  where  brains  and 
wealth  unite  in  the  chorus  : “ It  can’t  be  helped  ! ” Woe  for  us  in 
our  civilization  if  so  it  be ! 

But,  my  friends,  it  is  a lie  of  the  devil.  If  there  is  one  wrong 
on  the  earth  that  cannot,  sooner  or  later,  be  righted,  when  men 
shall  but  study  and  work  together,  then  this  is  no  world  of  God. 
It  can  be  helped  ! It  needs  now  but  the  determined  resolve  that  it 
shall  be  helped,  to  open  the  way  out  of  the  clouds  into  light. 
Labor  is  beginning  to  study  the  problem  for  itself,  with  wits  sharp- 
ened by  want ; and,  with  insight  cleared  from  all  sophisms  of  vested 
interests,  it  sees  that  these  things  can  be  helped,  that  where  there’s 
a will  there’s  a way,  here  as  elsewhere. 


14 


It  shall  be  helped — that  is  the  meaning  of  the  labor  organizations 
which  are  springing-  up  to  day  on  every  hand,  developing  such  tre- 
mendous power  and  provoking  such  strong  opposition  from  the 
employers  of  labor.  I do  not  wonder  at  this  opposition,  after  the 
unreason  and  folly  that  has  been  displayed  of  late.  If  these 
organizations  are  to  persist  in  some  of  their  present  methods  the 
strain  will  be  unbearable  for  employers  of  labor.  I have  no  defense 
to  put  in  on  behalf  of  these  methods,  which  I reprobate  as  heartily 
as  you  do.  But.  I pray  you  not  to  let  such  excesses  drive  you  into 
any  equally  unreasonable  attittude  of  opposition.  I appeal  to  your 
sense  of  generosity,  your  justice,  and  your  enlightened  self-interest 
in  the  matter. 

Remember,  my  friends,  what  you  employers  of  labor  owe  to 
just  such  organizations  in  past  times.  Refresh  your  memories  of 
history  and  you  will  recall  how,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  manufacturers 
and  tradesmen  and  merchants  were  a semi-servile  . class,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  rapacious  and  lawless  Barons  of  the  Crags — those 
social  vultures  who  from  their  eyries  on  the  hills  swooped  down 
upon  the  farmers’  fields,  levied  tolls  upon  the  passing  traders,  and 
ground  the  craftsmen  of  the  neighboring  villages  into  the  dust. 
Freedom  and  wealth  and  social  position  for  the  manufacturer 
and  trader  and  merchant  were  won  by  the  stout  burghers  of  the 
towns  banding  together  in  unions  which  gave  strength.  It  was 
those  Craft  and  Trade  Guilds  of  the  olden  time,  whose  relics 
remain  in  the  great  Companies  of  London,  which  formed  the  first 
industrial  organizations  in  our  western  world.  Labor  is  simply 
patterning  after  the  good  example  which  your  ancestors  set.  Do 
not  meanly  deny  to  it  the  use  of  the  same  all-powerful  weapon  of 
association  to  which  you  owe  your  liberties. 

Labor  can  no  more  win  its  economic  independence  to-day 
without  association,  than  employers  of  labor  could  have  won  then- 
liberty  in  past  times  without  union.  You  know,  as  well  as  the 
workingman  knows,  that  to  stand  alone  is  to  be  at  the  mercy  of 
unscrupulous  and  tyrannous  employers,  a victim  of  the  hostile 
circumstances  which  are  closing  round  him  and  threatening  a new 
serfdom.  The  first  right  of  self-preservation  demands  his  freedom 
of  association.  Be  just  enough  to  recognize  this  inherent  right, 
despite  of  the  abuses  to  which  it  may  lead. 

All  the  real  advances  which  labor  has  won  in  our  century — 
those  advances  to  which  you  point  as  the  evidence  that  his  lot  is 
bettering — have  been  won  chiefly  by  the  power  which  he  has  de- 
veloped through  association. 

Justin  McCarthy,  in  his  “ History  of  Our  Own  Times,”  when 
speaking  of  the  famous  Chartist  movement,  writes  : “ There  had 
been  a parliament  of  aristocrats  and  landlords,  and  it  had  for 
generations  troubled  itself  little  about  the  class  from  whom  Chart- 
ism was  recruited.  The  sceptre  of  legislative  power  had  passed 


15 


into  tlie  hands  of  a parliament,  made  up  in  great  measure  of  the 
wealthy  middle  ranks,  and  it  had  thus  far  shown  no  inclination  to 
distress  itself  overmuch  about  them.  Almost  every  single  measure 
parliament  has  passed  to  do  any  good  for  the  wage-receiving 
classes  and  the  poor  generally  has  been  passed  since  the  time 
when  the  Chartists  began  to  be  in  power.  Our  Corn  Laws’  repeal, 
our  factory  ' acts,  our  sanitary  legislation,  our  measures  referring 
to  the  homes  of  the  poor — all  these  have  been  the  work  of  later 
times  than  those  which  engendered  the  Chartist  movement.”  All 
who  have  carefully  studied  the  history  of  labor  organizations  in  Eng- 
land confirm  this  judgment.  If  wages  have  risen,  it  has  been 
chiefly  because  labor  has  developed  a power  to  enforce  its  demands 
for  a larger  share  of  profits.  It  has  been  the  same  story  with 
us  here.  I spoke  to  you  earlier  in  the  winter  of  a notable 
scheme  of  profit-sharing  which  had  been  introduced  in  a New  Eng- 
land company,  but  I did  not  know  at  the  time  that  this  wise  measure 
was  the  result  of  a long  and  trying  strife  which  that  company 
had  been  waging  with  Labor  Unions. 

Labor  organizations  lmve  learned  wisdom,  through  experience, 
in  the  past.  They  began  in  England  with  as  abominable  methods 
as  certain  of  these  now  brought  into  use  here — in  some  of  whiph, 
however,  let  me  remind  you,  they  were  simply  imitating  the  bad 
example  set  by  employers  of  labor,  66  rattening,”  for  exampie,  having 
been  first  introduced  by  the  bosses — but  they  have  been  gradually 
correcting  their  mistakes,  gaining  sobnety  and  good  judgment, 
and  turning  their  organizations  into  institutions  for  the  education 
of  their  members,  for  their  mutual  assurance  and  for  political  in- 
fluence upon  legislation.  Mr.  George  Howells  shows  that  a number 
of  societies,  which  he  had  specially  studied,  had  spent  in  thirty 
years  upward  of  $19,000,000  through  their  various  relief  f unds,  and 
$1,369,455  only  on  strikes.  Mr.  Harrison  speaks  of  seven  societies 
spending  in  one  year  (1879)  upward  of  $4,000,000  upon  their  mem- 
bers out  of  work.  He  shows  that  seven  of  the  great  societies 
spent  in  1882  less  than  two  per  cent,  of  their  income  on  strikes; 
and  states  that  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  union  funds  in  England 
u have  been  expended  in  the  beneficent  work  of  supporting  work- 
men* in  bad  times,  in  laying  by  a store  for  bad  times,  and  saving 
the  country  from  a crisis  of  destitution  and  strife.” 

We  may  reasonably  expect,  therefore,  that  labor  organizations 
will  educate  themselves  here,  as  they  have  done  in  England,  in  the 
practical  methods  of  self-help.  This  process  is  going  on  before 
our  eyes.  The  trades-unions  of  skilled  labor  are  even  now  conserv- 
ative institutions.  They  represent  intelligence  in  intelligent  action. 
You  have  all  read  lately  the  calm,  wise  words  of  Mr.  Arthur,  the 
chief  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers.  Power  is 
safely  lodged  in  such  hands.  The  unions  of  unskilled  labor 
present,  doubtless,  the  real  danger  before  us.  These  unions  are, 


10 


however,  also  capable  of  becoming  great  educational  instrumental- 
ities, and  education  will  bring  them  wisdom  They  are  fortunately 
being  drawn  into  great  federations,  wherein  the  unions  of  skilled 
labor  come  naturally  to  the  top  and  take  the  reins  of  power. 
Unskilled  labor,  comparatively  ignorant  and  distrustful  of  its  em- 
ployers, will,  in  time,  follow  the  guidance  of  skilled  labor,  and 
this  is  always  conservative. 

, Such  an  association  as  the  Knights  of  Labor,  which,  because  of 
its  comprehensive  character  seems  to  threaten  so  much  danger, 
presents  the  very  safeguard  which  society  needs.  So  far  from 
standing  aloof  from  the  Knights  of  Labor,  it  seems  to  me  that 
all  employers  of  labor  ought  frankly  to  recognize  this  order  as  an 
invaluable  ally.  Its  principles  are,  upon  the  whole,  excellent. 
The  present  head  of  the  order  may  possibly  lack  the  genius  of  a 
Napoleon,  but  his  judgment  is,  upon  the  whole,  sound,  and  his 
spirit  temperate,  and  he  may  turn  out  a Wellington.  ' What  could 
be  more  excellent  advice  to  our  workingmen  than  that  which  he 
has  given  officially  in  the  secret  circular  which  lately  came  to  light. 
He  is  fighting  within  this  National  Order  the  battle  of  society  with 
the  lawless  elements  which  are  threatening  rebellion.  That  order 
has  already  prevented  hundreds  of  strikes,  and  for  its  own  preser  - 
vation will  tighten  discipline,  so  as  to  stop  local  assemblies  from 
precipitating  general  contests.  As  it  seems  to  me,  employers 
cannot  better  help  themselves,  and  society  through  them,  than  by 
lending  encouragement  to  such  leaders  of  the  ranks  of  labor  as  are 
honestly  striving  to  turn  the  immense  power  of  such  an  order  into 
channels  where  it  will  drive  the  wheels  of  reform,  rather  than  let  it 
pour  forth  in  floods  of  anarchy  and  revolt  over  the  fields  of  industry. 
It  is  true,  as  the  New  Jersey  Bureau  of  Labor  declares : “Increased 
organization,  whether  of  masters  or  of  men,  or  of  both,  means  de- 
creased war.”  Just  as  international  war  is  becoming  so  frightfully 
expensive,  so  unmanageably  huge  as  to  make  for  peace,  so  it  will  be 
in  the  strife  between  capital  and  labor. 

The  best  work  of  these  labor  organizations,  however,  I look 
to  see  in  other  fields  than  this  of  war.  They  can  become  inval- 
uable educational  instrumentalities,  immense  mutual  assurance 
leagues,  bureaus  of  information  concerning  the  labor  market, 
omnipotent  agents  in  our  politics — correcting  the  present  partial 
legislation,  guarding  the  just  rights  of  labor  under  law,  securing 
a free  field  for  the  natural  equation  of  the  problem  of  wages — and 
they  can  prove  the  nuclei  for  the  great  co-operative  association  out 
of  which,  if  ever,  the  dream  of  a Co-operative  Commonwealth  is  to 
realize  itself. 

Toward  organizations  discharging  such  functions  there  is  no 
need  of  hostility,  and  I pray  you  do  not  set  your  faces  against  them. 
They  have  come  to  stay.  Upon  your  attitude  toward  them  largely 
depends  their  attitude  toward  you  and  toward  society.  In  simple 


17 


self-preservation  you  must  resist  vigorously  the  dictatorial  and 
tyrannous  methods  which  they  are  at  present  so  largely  using. 
To  do  this  it  may  be  needful  for  you  to  combine,  as  in  so  many 
lines  of  industry  you  are  doing,  but  let  me  urge  upon  you  to 
proceed  slowly  and  cautiously.  Act  not  from  feeling  but  from 
judgment  and  conscience. 

As  I watch  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  greatest  danger  that  I 
see  is  in  the  precipitation  of  a strife  over  these  organizations  such 
as  our  country  has  nev6r  known  as  yet.  Within  the  last  fort- 
night I have  observed  perhaps  a dozen  notices  of  the  formation  of 
associations  among  employers  of  labor,  looking  to  actions  which 
seem  to  me  certain  to  make  not  for  peace  but  for  war.  A day 
or  two  ago  I read  that  one  hundred  manufacturers  of  Chicago 
had  determined  together  to  reopen  their  shops  on  Monday,  offering 
ten  hours’  work  for  ten  hours’  pay,  and  inviting  back  their  men 
who  were  out  on  strikes ; declaring  thfit  the  failure  to  return 
within  a week  would  put  the  names  of  absentees  upon  the  “ black- 
list,” which  would  bar  them  from  employment  in  other  factories. 
The  Nation , from  which  I had  this  item,  remarks : “ This  system 
of . self-defense  is  growing  popular.”  Popular  doubtless,  but  un- 
speakably dangerous. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  manufacturers  have  the  right  to 
black-list  incorrigible  hands,  men  who  have  proven  themselves 
hopelessly  vicious.  That  is  the  right  of  those  whose  interests 
are  common  to  protect  one  another  against  their  common  enemies. 
But  how  easily  may  this  right  pass  on  into  a frightful  wrong ! 
How  quickly  may  it  become  an  instrument  of  tremendous  tyranny! 
How  readily  may  it  be  used  by  superintendents  and  bosses,  whom 
you  trust,  to  punish  private  quarrels ! How  natural  that  mistakes 
shall  be  made  concerning  the  men  who  are  thus  proscribed ! How 
inevitable  that  it  shall  mass  in  the  labor  market  a growing  host 
who  beai-  the  mark  of  Cain  upon  their  foreheads,  who  find  no 
avenue  of  employment  open  to  them,  who  face  starvation,  and 
thus  becoming  desperate  turn  their  hands  against  society,  who 
feeling  themselves  outlaws,  act  as  outlaws!  How  certain  that  labor 
at  large  will  espouse  the  cause  of  men  whom  it  will  judge  to  be 
martyrs,  forgiving  them  their  follies  and  crimes  because  they  are 
of  themselves,  backing  them  by  the  power  of  its  organizations, 
answering  the  black-list  with  the  boycott.  This  is  the  danger  in 
the  most  guarded  use  of  the  black-list.  What  then  the  unspeak- 
able danger  in  any  such  use  of  it  as  jthat  which  I hear  spoken 
of  among  you  ? To  assume  to  black-list  men  because  of  their  con- 
nection with  labor  unions — is  to  throw  down  the  gage  of  war. 
Ironclad  contracts  and  similar  devices  to  shut  out  men  who  maintain 
their  affiliations  with  labor  organizations  are  simply  so  many 
challenges  of  defiance  to  a power  which  needs  to  be  conciliated 
and  wisely  guided  into  paths  of  peace,  rather  than  to  be  infu- 


18 


riated  into  open  rebellion  against  society.  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie 
declares  : “ the  right  of  the  workingmen  to  combine  and  to  form 
trades-unions  is  no  less  sacred  than  the  right  of  the  manufacturer 
to  enter  into  associations  and  conferences  with  his  fellows,  and  it 
must  be  sooner  or  later  conceded.” 

You  can  fight  labor  organizations  if  you  will,  my  friends,  and 
perhaps  you  can  crush  them — though  I doubt  that.  But  have  you 
seriously  contemplated  what  such  a war  means  ? If  not,  before 
you  go  further,  I pray  you,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  to  sit  down 
and  study  out  the  issues  of  the  campaign  upon  which  you  are  about 
to  enter  so  lightly. 

VIII.  I show  unto  you  a more  excellent  way.  There  should 
not  be  this  strife  between  employer  and  employee.  Do  buyers  and 
sellers  think  of  organizing  themselves  into  hostile  armies  ? In  the 
economic  aspect  of  the  matter,  employers  and  employees  are  simply 
buyers  and  sellers  of  htiman  labor.  Is  it  not  possible  that  this 
bargaining  shall  be  carried  on  as  between  human  beings,  calmly, 
fairly,  peacefully? 

There  is  a higher  aspect  of  the  matter,  however,  than  that 
of  economics.  The  present  trouble  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  a 
necessary  human  relationship  has  been  degraded  into  a mere  bar- 
gaining of  the  market.  It  is  just  because  this  human  relationship 
has  had  the  soul  left  out  of  it  that  its  economic  body  is  developing 
such  a dangerous  disease.  The  same  Chinese  sage  whom  I have 
already  quoted,  wrote  again : “ Let  the  people  be  employed  in  a 
way  to  secure  their  happiness  ; although  wearied  they  will  not 
murmur.”  Employers  of  labor  have  neglected  the  happiness  and 
the  welfare  of  their  people,  and  hence  this  murmuring.  You 
can  easily  take  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of  agitators. 

I like  to  use  a Faber  lead  pencil,  not  only  because  it  is  the  best 
pencil  that  1 can  find,  but  because  its  excellence  continually  brings 
up  to  my  mind  the  admirable  establishment  which  produces  such 
work;  the  great  indust lial  village  of  the  Fabers  in  Bavaria,  where 
brains  and  wealth  seek  not  only  to  use  labor  for  higher  profits,  but 
to  lift  labor  to  higher  levels  of  life.  The  Messrs.  Faber  are  distin- 
guished for  their  philanthropy  and  for  their  close  attention  to 
the  mural  and  physical  welfare  of  their  employees.  At  their  own 
expense*  they  have  established  schools  and  kindergartens,  built 
churches,  founded  libraries,  archer  clubs  and  other  organizations 
for  the  recreation  and  the  improvement  of  their  woikmen.  All  the 
actual  necessaries  of  lifp  are  purchased  by  the  firm  at  wholesale, 
and  can  be  so  bought  by  the  men.  A savings  bank  encourages 
the  habit  of  thrift,  and  a hospital  provides  for  those  who  may 
be  disabled,  and  in  old  age  a small  pension  secures  them  from 
absolute,  want  Each  family  may  own  a home  of  its  own,  paying  for 
it  in  installments  in  the  form  of  rent.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
strikes  are  unknown  and  that  mutual  trust  and  good-will  prevail 


19 


Now,  this  establishment  is  simply  the  type  of  a host  of  similar 
establishments  which,  thank  God ! are  springing  up  in  every  land, 
under  the  large-brained  and  large-hearted  management  of  men 
whose  names  will  go  down  to  posterity  as  the  truest  philanthropists 
of  our  age  of  philanthropy.  Such  honored  names  are  b*  coming 
familiar  in  our  own  landv  One  of  our  own  citizens  testified  before 
the  late  Senate  Committee  on  Education  and  Labor,  as  follows : 
“We  are  employing  in  the  neighborhood  of  four  thousand  people. 
We  endeavor  in  all  our  intercourse  with  our  working  people  to 
treat  them  as  human  beings,  with  kindness,  and  consequently 
it  is  very  seldom  indeed  that  we  ever  have  any  labor  disturbances. 
* * * We  frequently  give  them  a holiday  or  an  excursion  at 

the  expense  of  the  firm.  * * * We  provide  them  with  medi- 

cal attendance  free  of  charge  ; and  the  senior  member  of  the  firm 
has  lately  given  instructions  to  engage  a suitable  building  for  a 
library  and  to  supply  it  with  a large  number  of  volumes  for  the 
benefit  of  the  factory  hands  without  any  cost  to  them.  He  has 
under  contemplation  the  propriety  of  giving  them  the  benefit  of 
free  schools  at  night.” 

There  is  a yet  higher  development  of  this  relationship,  in 
which  I find  the  secret  of  peace  and  prosperity.  The  vice  of  the 
present  wage  system  is  that  it  puts  the  two  parties  to  the  bargain 
on  the  opposite  ends  of  a seesaw;  whereon  each  side  tries 
to  go  up  by  making  the  other  side  go  down.  What  is  needed  for 
peace  and  prosperity  is  to  induce  some  identification  of  interests, 
instead  of  this  antagonism  of  interests.  We  need  not  concern 
ourselves  about  the  ultimate  form  of  the  industrial  order  into  which 
the  wage  system  is  to  develop,  but  we  may  well  concern  ourselves 
about  the  next  step  forward,  in  making  capital  and  labor  partners 
instead  of  enemies.  That  step  forward  is  what  is  now  known  as 
Industrial  Partnership  or  Profit-sharing — the  allowance  to  the 
employees  of  some  share  in  the  profits  of  the  establishment,  over 
and  above  their  wages,  and  pro  rata  to  their  wages. 

This  is  no  dream  of  the  theorist,  but  simply  the  common 
sense  principle  of  securing  harmony  of  interests,  and  thus  the 
greater  productiveness  which  comes  from  putting  “ heart  ” back 
of  the  hands.  It  is  already  in  operation  in  a considerable  number 
of  establishments  in  our  country — the  most  notable  experiment 
being  in  the  gigantic  Pillsbury  Flour  Mills  of  Minneapolis.  What- 
ever may  be  said  of  this  experiment,  this  is  certain — as  Mr.  Howland 
Hazard  writes  of  his  venture  in  the  Peacedale  Mills  : “ It  pays  as 
a lightning  rod.”  The  man  of  brains  and  wealth  who  will  repro- 
duce upon  our  shores  the  superb  success  of  M.  Godin  in  Guise ; 
who  will  organize  an  industrial  establishment  in  which  his  employ- 
ees shall  have  the  benefit  of  a model  town,  while  they  are  being 
trained  under  his  own  direction  into  the  ability  to  manage  the  com- 
pany after  he  passes  away,  as  their  own  property  bought  out  by 


20 


their  gradual  purchase  of  its  shares — that  man  will  be  hailed  by 
the  coming  generations  as  the  savior  of  society. 

Men  of  brains  and  wealth,  to  whom  God  has  given  the  highest 
power  on  earth,  the  power  of  leadership,  to  you  I appeal — to  your 
calm  reason,  to  your  conscience  turned  upward  unto  the  face  of 
God.  Make  yourselves  true  Captains  of  Industry,  and  organize 
not  the  war  of  destruction  of  whose  glories  the  past  has  sung,  but 
the  peace  of  production,  whose  glories  the  future  will  sing,  while 
angels  bend  low  from  the  skies  in  the  chorus  : “ Peace  on  earth, 
good-will  among  men.’' 


21 


CAPITAL’S  VIEW  OF  THE  SITUATION. 

“ Hear  the  other  side  ” is  a good  old  rule  for  an  amicable 
adjustment  of  differences.  It  is  a rule  which  each  party  in  the  con- 
test between  capital  and  labor  needs  to  apply  to  the  debate  in 
hand  to-day.  In  this  case,  as  in  every  other  case  of  which  I know 
anything,  there  are  two  sides  to  the  question. 

As  I tried  to  give  last  Sunday  labors  answers  to  capitals  com- 
plaints, so  let  me  try  to-day  to  give  capital’s  answers  to  labor's 
complaints. 

I.  Unskilled  labor  says  bluntly  to  the  capitalist : “lam  poor. 
I am  wronged  in  being  poor.  Somebody  has  done  me  this  wrong.’' 
With  you,  my  friends,  in  the  ranks  oi*  labor,  I believe  you  are 
wronged  in  being  thus  poor.  There  is  a fault  somewhere.  As 
Tregarva,  in  Yeast,  said,  when  watching  the  life  of  the  peasantry 
in  an  English  village  : “ Somebody  deserves  to  be  whopped  for  all 
this.” 

Perhaps  there  are  several  parties  to  share  in  this  whopping. 
Capital  asks : “Are  you  quite  sure  that  one  of  them  is  not  the  man 
whom  you  face  in  the  looking-glass  ? V 

In  that  you  stand  in  the  ranks  of  unskilled  labor  you  confess 
yourself  to  be  comparatively  uneducated.  This  may  be  chiefly 
your  misfortune.  In  so  far  as  it  is,  you  have  the  sincere  pity  of 
all  men  who  have  had  better  opportunities.  But  is  it  in  no  sense 
your  own  fault  ? Have  you  used  the  advantages  offered  in  our 
country  and  educated  yourselves  for  higher  occupations  ? If  not, 
blame  yourselves  first  of  all.  There  is  always  room  at  the  top. 
The  really  skilled  workman  has  rarely  any  need  to  answer  adver- 
tisements. Even  so-called  skilled  labor  is  often  most  unskillful. 
He  who  has  need  to  employ  mechanics  of  any  kind  knows  how 
constantly  he  must  keep  his  eye  upon  many  of  them,  to  prevent 
them  from  making  most  stupid  mistakes.  For  such  men,  despite 
our  pity  over  them,  there  can  be  but  poor  wages,  in  the  present 
state  of  things.  High  wages  for  poor  work  would  put  a premium 
on  ignorance.  Nature  wiil  see  that  we  don’t  stand  thus  in  the 
way  of  man’s  education.  Should  we  try  to  do  so,  she  will  starve 
society  back  into  general  poverty  very  quickly. 

In  that  you  are  of  our  race,  you  may  be  unconsciously  guilty 
of  that  veritable  original  sin — laziness.  I have  stood  in  Central 
Park  watching  laborers  trundling  their  barrows,  and  learned 
unsuspected  lessons  as  to  man’s  capacity  of  approaching  the 
pace  of  a 8 nail.  I have  had  some  little  opportuQity  of  employing 
unskilled  labor,  in  my  wee  bit  of  a garden,  and  have  been  pro- 
foundly impressed  with  the  disposition  of  the  lads  I have  hired 
to  do  just  as  little  as  possible  in  order  to  draw  their  wages. 
Success  is  possible  in  no  line  to  men  who  work  with  such  a spirit. 
They  must  always  remain  far  down  in  the  scale  of  labor,  and  be 
paid  according  to  their  deserts. 


22 


In  that  you  are  like  us  all,  you  may  be,  without  knowing  it, 
very  improvident.  Every  housekeeper  who  is  worthy  of  the  name 
knows  the  truth  of  this  as  touching  poor  women.  Her  girls  will 
waste  materials  in  a fashion  to  nearly  drive  her  crazy,  and  then 
complain  of  her  meanness  when  she  tries  to  rebuke  their  wasteful- 
ness. Every  employer  of  unskilled  labor,  and  for  that  matter 
many  an  employer  of  skilled  labor,  knows  how  reckless  the  hands 
are  of  those  small  economies,  those  minute  carefulnesses  which 
count  so  heavily  in  the  aggregate,  in  the  mill  and  factory  and  work- 
shop. There  is  not  an  employer  of  labor  to-day  who  could  not 
well  enough  afford  to  increase  the  wages  of  his  hands  very  consid- 
erably, if  together  they  chose  to  be  as  careful  as  they  readily  might 
be  of  his  materials.  The  * old  adage  is  true : “ Willful  waste 
makes  woeful  want.” 

You  might  save  enough  in  your  foods  alone  to  amount  to 
more  than  the  equivalent  of  the  increase  of  wages  which  you 
desire,  if  you  were  at  pains,  so  to  do.  It  sounds  hard  when  you 
find  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson  giving  you  tables  of  the  lowest  cost  of 
living.  Such  figuring  may  be  used  as  an  excuse  on  the  part  of 
avaricious  employers  to  crowd  down  your  wages ; but,  for  you, 
it  is  the  part  of  common  sense  to  learn  how  you  can  make  your 
money  go  as  far  as  possible.  Of  course,  a generous  diet  is  neces- 
sary for  effective  work,  but  the  essential  elements  of  nutrition  can 
be  supplied  in  vastly  more  inexpensive  forms  and  methods  than  are 
common  among  us  all.  Think  of  grand  old  Carlyle  writing  some  of 
his  greatest  books  upon  a diet  of  oatmeal  porridge,  and  do  not 
talk  about  its  being  necessary  for  you  to  have  the  finest  cuts, 
as  a butcher  of  our  city  told  me  many  of  our  workingmen  insisted 
upon  having. 

Some  of  your  habits,  my  friends,  are  even  more  inexcusably 
wasteful.  The  drink  bill  of  our  country  is  some  $700,000,0Q0  per 
annum,  a very  considerable  part  of  which  labor  is  paying  to-day. 
Men  who  strike  for  higher  wages  can  find  enough  generally  for 
whiskey  and  tobacco.  In  reading  the  testimony  of  intelligent 
workingmen,  I have  been  impressed  with  the  recurrence  of  the 
opinion  that  cne  of  the  first  things  to  do  to  better  the  condition  of 
labor,  as  a whole,  is  to  reform  its  drinking  habits.  Suppose,  as  Mr. 
Powderly  advises,  you  boycott  drink. 

Lest  you  should  think  that  I am  speaking  from  an  unsym- 
pathetic position,  let  me  quote  the  opinion  of  an  intelligent  and 
thrifty  man,  who  has  worked  in  a mill  from  boyhood : “ If  the 

wife  of  the  factory  worker  would  practice  the  same  economy  prac- 
ticed by  an  average  mechanic’s  wife,  she  would  be  just  as  able  to 
make  both  ends  meet  without  going  to  the  mill.  The  native  Amer- 
ican has  a pleasant  sitting-room  with  carpet  and  pictures,  and 
piano  or  organ,  and  a cozy  home-look  everywhere,  while  many 
a mill  operative,  with  the  same  wages,  lives  in  a tenement  house 


23 


with  bare  walls.”  That  this  is  not  the  opinion  of  an  individual, 
let  the  following  fact  testify.  A study  of  the  comparative  earnings 
and  savings  of  labor  in  Massachusetts  and  in  England  shows  that, 
while  labor  in  Massachusetts  earns  forty  per  cent,  more  than  labor 
in  England,  it  saves  only  four  per  cent.  more.  Make  what  allowance 
you  will  for  the  imperfection  of  statistics,  for  our  higher  cost  of 
living,  for  our  larger  social  wants,  and  there  remains  still  a most 
impressive  lesson  in  this  fact. 

In  simple  justice,  I must  say  these  hard  truths  before  passing 
to  other  matters.  They  are  preached  so  much  to  you  workingmen 
that  I do  not  wonder  you  grow  restive  under  such  preachments. 
They  are  used  to  cover  up  the  back-lying  facts  of  the  situation 
to  which  I referred  last  Sunday,  to  hide  the  large  forces  that  are 
working  against  you  in  our  industrial  society.  I do  not  use  them 
in  this  spirit.  I recognize  that  the  conditions  of  our  life  to-day, 
in  many  respects,  induce  these  very  faults  in  you ; so  that  I pity 
while  I blame.  I recognize,  also,  that  when  you  have  educated 
yourselves  and  become  industrious  and  thrifty,  you  will  then  be 
far  from  having  solved  the  labor  problem  ; you  will  have  then 
simply  qualified  yourselves  to  grapple  with  that  problem  in  its 
harder  form.  But  this  I say,  with  the  utmost  kindliness,  with  the 
profoundest  sympathy,  but  with  the  frankness  of  truth — there  is 
no  help  that  can  come  before  self-help.  There  is  no  conceivable 
condition  of  society  that  can  give  you  what  you  need,  and  what 
abstractly  you  ought  to  have,  until  you  first  make  yourself  fit  to 
receive  higher  pay  by  intelligence  and  industry,  and  fit  to  use 
that  higher  pay  by  habits  of  thrift. 

II.  Unskilled  labor  puts  this  complaint  concerning  its  pov- 
erty in  a still  more  direct  form  against  the  employer  of  labor. 
It  says:  “ You  are  rich  and  I am  poor.  As  I am  working  for 
you,  you  have  probably  grown  rich  out  of  my  labor.  You  have 
made  me  poor.”  In  this  form,  the  feeling  does  not  articulate  itself 
into  any  definite  proposition  concerning  the  relation  of  profits  and 
wages,  but  it  is  simply  a vague,  blind  suspicion  of  wealth. 
Now  and  then  you  will  hear  it  blurted  forth  in  such  a wild,  mad 
outcry  of  envy  as  Mary  Parson’s  speech  in  Chicago  the  other  day. 

With  you,  my  friends,  who  stand  in  the  ranks  of  unskilled 
labor,  I feel  that  there  is  a wrong  in  the  fact  of  much  of  the  wealth 
that  confronts  you  to-day.  But,  with  the  capitalist,  I think  that 
the  wrongful  wealth  is  not  his  but  the  other  fellow’s — the  man  who 
is  neither  capitalist  nor  workingman,  but  the  enemy  of  both. 

There  are  by  law  allowed  certain  monopolies  of  the  natural 
resources  of  the  earth,  which  create  vast  fortunes  that  will  bear 
no  ethical  examination.  There  are  hosts  of  men,  by  courtesy  called 
business-men,  who  are  engaged  in  no  legitimate  form  of  business, 
who  are  simply  preying  upon  the  world  of  industry  and  trade, 
injuring  capitalists  and  workingmen  alike.  There  are  gamblers 


24 


down-town,  and  not  a lew  of  them,  whose  names  are  well  known 
in  our  community,  who  are  distinguishable  from  the  u blackleg  ” 
simply  in  that  they  deal  with  stocks  instead  of  dice,  and  frequent 
the  street  and  Exchange  instead  of  hanging  over  the  pool-table. 
Thus  some  of  our  greatest  fortunes  are  accumulated,  but  they  are 
the  accumulations,  not  of  the  legitimate  business-man,  but  of  the 
speculative  thimble-rigger.  There  are  those  who  neither  build  the 
good  ship  of  industry  nor  sail  it,  but  wreck  it.  The  railroad 
wrecker  has  come  to  be  a well  recognized  form  in  our  society.  He 
has  cultivated  his  business  into  a fine  art  and  reduced  it  to  a 
science.  He  has  given  it  high  sounding  names  and  clothed  it  in 
garments  of  respectability.  None  the  less,  when  analyzed,  it  is  the 
business  of  the  wrecker.  There  are,  in  forms  too  manifold  to 
trace,  the  operations  of  our  modern  freebooters,  who  harry  every 
field  of  industry  and  trade  and  pile  up  their  colossal  wealth  out  of 
the  ruins  of  honest  toil,  whether  of  brains  or  brawn.  Capital 
and  labor  are  equally  suffering  to-day  from  these  vampires  of  the 
business  world.  These  are  the  men  whose  openly  immoral  wealth 
is  teaching  labor  to  regard  all  wealth  as  criminal.  These  are  the 
men  who  are  breeding  thunder-storms  in  our  midst,  and  preparing 
cyclones  which  may  sweep  over  our  land  at  any  time  in  devastation. 

But,  my  laboring  friends,  do  not  make  the  mistake  of  confusing 
such  wealth  with  the  wealth  of  legitimate  business  ; do  not  identify 
the  gambler  and  the  wrecker  and  the  bucanier  with  the  capitalist. 
Many  employers  of  labor  may  also  be  monopolists  of  some  natural 
resource,  or  they  may  be  engaged  in  side  speculations,  and  thus 
their  wealth  may  be  chiefly  not  that  of  the  capitalist  but  that  of  the 
monopolist  and  speculator.  Remember,  I pray  you,  that  there  is  no 
capitalist  class  in  this  country,  no  hard  and  fast  lines  of  an  employ- 
ing caste.  The  capitalist  of  to-day  was  the  workingman  of  yester- 
day. Nine  out  of  ten  of  our  great  employers  of  labor  were 
themselves  employed  by  others  but  a few  years  ago.  I was  speak- 
ing a few  days  since  to  a gentleman  who  employs  four  thousand 
men,  and  he  said  to  me  : “ Have  we  not  all  pushed  our  way  up  from 
the  ranks  of  labor  ? ” This  is  the  glory  of  our  country. 

Now  these  men  who  have  risen  to  be  employers,  rose  by  culti- 
vating their  minds,  and  impioving  their  opportunities  to  fit  them- 
selves for  higher  positions.  They  have  climbed  the  ladder  by  hard 
work.  As  I grow  older  I may  perhaps  grow  harder,  but  I certainly 
grow  more  convinced  of  the  fact  that  the  difference  between  men  as 
to  outward  success,  is  largely  a difference  of  disposition  aud  ability 
for  hard  work.  Successful  lawyers  and  doctors  and  clergymen,  as 
well  as  successful  manufacturers,  are  the  men  who  can  slave  at  their 
work,  while  their  friends  loaf  and  dawdle.  The  men  who  have  risen 
are  the  men  who  have  from  the  beginning  practiced  abstinence,  who 
have  cultivated  simple  economies,  who  have  determined  to  save 
enough  to  get  ahead.  One  of  our  most  successful  bankers  told  me 


that  from  the  time  when  he  began  as  a clerk  it  had  been  his  rule  al- 
ways to  keep  within  his  income  and  to  salt  something  down. 
Political  Economy  is  right  in  teaching  that  capital,  originally,  is  the 
fruit  of  abstinence,  and  that  its  legitimate  profits  are  the  rewards 
which  society  pays  to  the  men  who  deny  themselves  in  the  present 
for  the  sake  of  the  future. 

Doubtless  it  is  becoming  ever  harder  for  men  to  rise  out  of  the 
ranks  of  labor,  as  the  stress  of  competition  becomes  fiercer,  as  the 
plant  of  any  industry  becomes  more  costly,  as  the  processes  of 
manufacturing  become  more  subtle,  and  as  the  conditions  of  the 
market  become  more  involved ; but  the  way  upward  is  yet  open  for 
any  man  who  has  the  clear  grit  to  rise.  Doubtless  this  very  ca- 
pacity, in  which  lies  the  secret  of  success,  is  one  of  the  richest  gifts 
of  nature — the  boon  of  the  few  and  not  the  common  heritage  of  the 
many.  Those  who  have  it  must  then  look  down  from  their  superior 
advantages  with  tender  human  sympathy  for  those  who  have  come 
into  life  dowered  with  a mortgage  from  the  ignorance  and  dullness 
and  feebleness  of  earlier  generations.  On  the  other  hand,  labor 
must  recognize  that  the  foundation  of  the  wealth  won  by  employers 
of  labor  is  laid  by  these  honest  qualities,  which  entitle  them  not  to 
our  hatred  but  to  our  admiration  and  imitation — at  least  as  touch- 
ing these  characteristics.  Garfield  said  that  his  career  opened  on  the 
day  wherein  he  read  an  essay  of  Emerson,  of  which  he  remembered 
nothing  but  this  one  saying  : “We  are  all  of  us  as  lazy  as  we  dare 
to  be.”  The  hard  look  of  life  is  largely  the  discipline  of  Mother 
Nature  to  forbid  our  daring  to  be  as  lazy  as  we  wish. 

III.  Skilled  labor  puts  its  complaint  against  capital  more  de- 
finitely and  personally.  “ Labor,”  it  says,  “ is  the  creator  of  all 
wealth,  therefore,  it  ought  to  get  all  wealth.  Labor  is  wronged  to 
the  extent  of  capital’s  profits.”  This  is  the  pith  of  German  Socialism, 
in  its  more  radical  forms.  You  will  find  it  clearly  stated  in  Gron- 
lund’s  “ Modern  Socialism.”  If  this  be  true,  then  the  term  which 
Gronlund  applies  to  the  profits  of  capital  is  literally  accurate — they 
are  “ fleecings.” 

Now  in  what  sense  is  it  true  that  labor  is  the  creator  of  all 
wealth  1 In  a general  sense  it  is  indisputable,  but  in  this  sense  it 
is  axiomatic.  The  raw  material  of  all  wealth  is  found  in  the  earth — 
the  land  and  water.  None  of  the  products  of  the  earth,  however, 
constitute  wealth,  save  as  labor  is  applied  to  them.  The  pioneer 
has  to  fell  the  trees  that  grow  in  the  virgin  forests,  and  catch  the 
fish  that  swarm  in  the  waters,  and  hunt  the  game  that  roam  through 
its  glades.  From  this  point,  the  amount  of  labor  necessary  to  pro- 
duce wealth  increases  as  man’s  wants  multiply  and  rise. 

In  our  state  of  society  all  wealth  is  the  result  of  three  factors 
— land,  capital,  and  labor.  One  must  have  land  to  cultivate  or  on 
which  to  plant  his  factory ; he  must  have  capital  to  buy  seed  and 
agricultural  tools  and  to  put  up  fences  and  barns,  or  to  rear  the  fac- 


26 


tory  and  stock  it  with  machinery ; and  then  he  must  have  more  labor 
than  his  own  pair  of  hands,  to  work,  his  farm  or  to  run  his  factory. 
One  naan  may  own  the  land,  while  another  may  supply  the  capital, 
and  many  others  must  contribute  their  labor.  The  profits  of  the 
enterprise  must  then  be  divided,  in  some  ratio  between  these  three 
partners.  Land  does  not  come  into  our  consideration  at  present, 
as  the  immediate  disturbance  is  between  the  other  two  partners, 
capital  and  labor. 

What  then  does  labor  mean  when  it  declares  that  it  creates  all 
wealth  ? It  surely  cannot  mean  that,  as  between  the  individual  em- 
ployer of  labor  and  his  several  laborers,  the  whole  wealth  of  any  in- 
dustry is  created  by  the  laborers.  The  most  hobby- ridden  theorists 
must  admit  the  fact  that  the  employer  of  labor  contributes  a very 
essential  part  to  the  production. 

The  building  in  which  the  hands  gather,  he  has  reared,  and  the 
machinery  which  stocks  the  building,  he  has  bought  and  set  up. 

He  is  entitled  to  his  interest  on  this  plant.  There  is  risk  involved 
in  this  outlay  of  capital,  and  this  must  be  secured  by  insurance. 

When  the  plant  is  established,  the  business  must  be  organized 
and  directed.  This  labor  of  superintendence  is  entitled  to  its  wages. 
This  is  genuine  labor,  though  the  labor  of  brains,  and  essential  to 
production.  To  make  a success  of  any  large  enterprise  to-day, 
there  must  be  a genius  of  command  which  is  no  more  common  in 
industry  than  in  war.  There  must  be  a knowledge  of  men  and  of 
affairs,  which  fev  of  us  possess.  There  must  be  the  capacity  to 
sweep  in  a bird’s-eye  vision  a market  which  is  becoming  as  wide  as 
the  world  ; to  forecast  tendencies,  to  form  correct  generalizations, 
to  decide  with  unerring  judgment  questions  which  are  subtle  and 
complicated  and  which,  for  the  most  part,  cannot  be  reasoned  out 
but  must  be  divined  instinctively.  There  must  be  immense  re- 
sources of  push  and  ' enterprise,  unfailing  supplies  of  energy,  in- 
domitable perseverance  and  a host  of  allied  qualities.  There  must 
be  added  to  all  these  qualities  a minute  and  exact  knowledge  of  the 
processes  involved  in  the  industry  in  question.  I know  of  one 
great  manufacturer  who  understands  personally  every  process 
carried  on  in  his  great  establishment,  and  is  able  to  step  into  any 
department  and  with  his  own  hands  do  what  is  there  to  be  done. 

The  absence  of  any  one  of  these  qualities  may  make  the  differ- 
ence between  failure  and  success  ; that  is,  between  no  profits  at  all 
and  large  profits ; that  is,  still  further,  between  no  wages,  or  possi- 
bly low  wages,  and  high  wages.  All  these  factors  go  to  the  making 
of  any  wealth  in  industry,  quite  as  much,  to  say  the  least,  as  the  toil 
of  the  hands.  All  must  be  paid  for.  . Their  pay  is  drawn  in  the 
shape  of  profits.  In  taking  this  pay  there  is  no  wrong  done  but  • 
simply  justice  rendered  ; no  robbery  committed  but  service  paid. 

The  function  of  brains  in  industry  is  increasing  all  the  time, 
as  our  processes  become  more  refined  and  subtle  and  complicated, 


27 


and  as  trade  becomes  larger  and  more  complex.  Science  and  Art 
are  increasingly  entering  into  industry  and  in  the  truest  sense  mak- 
ing the  value  of  the  products  turned  out  from  the  factory.  There 
are  hosts  of  industries  to-day  where  the  most  important  factor  is 
the  chemist’s  knowledge  and  skill.  What  makes  one  brewery  turn 
out  beer  that  everybody  wants  while  another  brewery  turns  out  beer 
that  nobody  wants,  is  a secret  of  chemistry — a secret  which  the  one 
party  has  found'  and  the  other  party  missed.  In  the  one  brewery 
there  is  a thriving  business,  large  profits  and  high  wages  ; while  the 
other  barely  covers  expenses  and  is  compelled  to  reduce  wages,  and 
at  last  to  close  up.  Cannot  the  workmen  in  the  successful  brewery 
see  that  what  puts  work  into  their  hands  and  wages  into  their 
pockets  is  the  product  of  brains  more  than  of  brawn  ; that  the  wealth 
is  in  the  last  analysis  produced  by  thought  rather  than  by  muscle  ? 
I pass  sometimes  a great  establishment  near  Broadwray,  which  has 
acquired  a national  reputation  for  the  beauty  of  its  artistic  de- 
signs and  the  thorough  workmanship  of  its  wares,  and  I never  do 
so  without  thinking  of  the  great-brained  man  who  literally  put  his 
life  into  that  establishment,  coining  his  fine  thoughts  into  stuffs 
which  everybody  wants  and  for  which  everybody  is  willing  to  pay 
high  prices.  Cannot  the  workingmen  in  the  great  factory  which 
feeds  that  store  understand  well  enough  that,  however  cunning 
the  skill  of  their  fingers,  they  never  would  have  the  wages  that  they 
get  but  for  the  more  cunning  skill  of  the  mind  of  the  artist  whose 
genius  built  up  that  great  establishment  % 

How  pitiful  then  sounds  the  folly  of  such  talk  as  one  hears  in 
many  a labor  meeting  to-day.  One  of  the  best  known  labor  champ- 
ions, in  a little  pamphlet  which  has  had  a wide  circulation,  I believe, 
•speaks  of  the  large  profits  which  employers  make — “ without  doing 
anything  but  superintend  the  work.”  Thus  the  seaman,  clinging  to 
the  rigging  in  the  midwinter’s  gale,  may  look  down  upon  the  cap- 
tain, standing  calmly  on  the  bridge,  while  the  great  steamer  ploughs 
her  way  through  the  fog  banks,  and  say  to  himself : “ That  man  is 
robbing  me  by  pocketing  ten  times  my  pay  without  doing  anything 
but  superintend  the  ship.”  Thus  the  private,  tramping  across 
heavy  fields,  may  look  up  to  the  general,  as  he  rides  by  the  column, 
with  envious  eye,  and  say  to  himself : “ He  gets  thousands  a year 
for  doing  nothing  but  superintend  the  army.”  But  then,  seaman 
and  soldier,  in  talking  so,  would  be  very  foolish,  would  they  not  ? 
When  you  do  any  job,  my  working  friend,  that  pays  you  well, 
which  does  the  most  labor,  your  head  or  your  hands  ? Apply  the 
parable  to  the  body  social,  and  be  sensible  enough  not  be  carried 
away  by  such  folly  as  Mr.  Martin  Irons  contributed  the  other  day 
to  the  Congressional  Committee.  “ What  do  you  think,”  asked  one 
of  the  committee,  “ about  labor  producing  wealth  ? ” To  which 
this  worthy  would-be  dictator  of  American  workingmen  replied  : 
“Labor  produces  everything,  and  capital  products  nothing? 


IV.  Labor  when  sensible — and  our  American  workingman  on 
the  whole  is  as  level-headed  as  any  other  member  of  the  community 
— cannot  but  admit  that  capital  is  entitled  to  its  share  in  the 
wealth  produced  by  industry.  It  insists  however  that  capital  gets 
too  big  a share.  It  says:  “You  employers  of  labor  ought  to  be 
paid,  but  you  are  too  highly  paid.  We  must  cut  down  your  pay.” 
This  is  plainly  a matter  to  be  determined,  first  of  all,  by  hard 
facts.  As  I said  last  Sunday,  we  have  not  the  data  upon  which  we 
can  decide  off-hand  this  question  of  the  present  relation  of  profits 
and  wages.  We  have  plenty  of  figures,  such  as  they  are,  but  they 
are  unreliable.  It  is  entirely  too  soon,  therefore,  to  go  on  to  raise 
the  other  question,  which  is  being  so  fiercely  mooted  in  certain 
quarters,  as  to  the  justice  of  capitals  profits.  We  should  first  know 
accurately  what  they  are,  before  we  try  to  determine  what  they  ought 
to  be.  I am  quite  prepared  to  admit  with  you,  my  working  friend, 
that  capital  probably  does  get,  at  many  times,  and  in  many  lines, 
an  utterly  disproportionate  share  of  industry.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  capital  replies:  “Do  not  judge  all  by  a few ; do  not  judge 
all  years  by  some  years.  Some  of  us  are  are  making  large  profits 
and  others  of  us  are  making  nothing.  In  some  years  we  all  make 
handsome  profits  and  in  other  years  we  all  lose  heavily.” 

These  are  cold,  hard  facts,  which  every  workingman  is  capa- 
ble of  recognizing  for  himself.  How  many  an  employer  to-day 
has  locked  up  in  his  costly  plant  the  fruit  of  years  of  toil,  getting 
from  it  all  barely  enough  to  cover  expenses,  and  utterly  unable  to 
sell  out  as  he  would  be  so  glad  to  do.  One  who  is  listening  to  me 
as  I speak,  situated  after  this  fashion,  went  to  his  hands,  a year 
or  so  ago,  and  offered  to  make  over  to  them  the  mill,  as  it  stood,  if 
they  would  form  an  association  and  guarantee  him  6 per  cent,  on* 
his  investment.  They  declined  his  offer,  and  were  probably  wise 
in  doing  so.  Have  you  any  idea,  my  friends,  how  many  man- 
ufacturers not  only  make  nothing  but  lose  everything  ? One  of  our 
great  dailies  stated  recently  that  about  95  per  cent,  of  those  who 
go  into  industry  fail.  In  trade  and  commerce,  I believe,  about  97 
per  cent.  fail.  Now  are  you  going  to  judge  the  95  per  cent,  in  in- 
dustry and  the  97  per  cent,  in  trade  and  commerce  by  the  5 and 
3 per  cent,  who  succeed  ? You  would  be  far  less  sensible  than  I 
take  you  to  be  if  you  do. 

But,  granting  that  capital’s  profits  are  high,  you  must  recog- 
nize the  fact,  my  friends,  that  we  have  all  to  pay  high  prices 
for  the  best  things.  You  can  get  a coat  that  will  fit  you  like  a 
bag  and  will  drop  to  pieces  on  your  shoulders  for  next  to  nothing, 
but  if  you  want  one  to  fit  you  gracefully  and  to  last  long  you  will 
have  to  pay  well  for  it.  You  artisans  and  mechanics  can  get  help- 
ers for  a song — but  you  will  probably  kick  them  out  of  the  way  be- 
fore the  day  is  over.  They  will  * hinder  you  more  than  they 
will  help  you. 


29 


You  can  hire  superintendents  of  a sort  very  cheaply.  * There 
are  lots  of  men  standing  idle  in  this  city  who  think  that  they  have 
brains  enough  to  run  the  biggest  industries,  and  that  the  world 
has  utterly  failed  to  recognize  their  genius.  Suppose  a few  hun- 
dred of  you  club  together  and  go  into  the  capital  market  to-morrow 
and  employ  one  of  these  uncrowned  kings  of  industry,  that  “ the 
rod  of  empire  might  have  swayed.”  How  far  will  he  lead  you 
to  financial  success,  in  the  terrific  strife  of  competition,  out  of 
which  only  the  best  brains  and  the  strongest  wills  are  wresting 
victory  ? You  are  altogether  too  sensible  to  trust  yourselves  to  any 
such  sort  of  brains,  however  cheaply  you  can  get  them.  If  then 
you  want  to  hire  the  best  brains  for  your  superintendence  you 
will  have  to  pay  for  them  proportionately  to  their  superiority.  The 
best  brains  must  always  have  the  highest  prices.  Their  scarcity 
and  service  fix  their  figures.  To  which  part  of  your  body  does 
nature  send  its  fullest  flow  of  blood?  Which  does  it  build  up  at 
greatest  cost  to  the  system?  That  little  mass  of  coiled,  gray  tissue 
which  you  call  your  brain  taxes  the  body  infinitely  more  to  produce 
and  maintain  it  than  both  hands  with  all  their  fingers. 

There  is  a hard  look  in  this  statement.  But  then  there  is  a 
hard  look  in  nature,  too,  my  friends— not  the  hard  look  of  an  unfeel- 
ing tyrant,  but  the  hard  look  of  a mother  who  loves  us  enough 
not  to  pamper  and  coddle  us  but  to  whip  us  into  effort  and  to  diet 
us  into  health.  Apart  from  all  their  other  and  higher  functions  in 
civilization,  brains,  as  we  have  seen,  form  the  chief  factor  in  the 
production  of  wealth.  Just  as  the  struggle  for  existence  becomes 
harder,  so  does  the  necessity  of  more  brains  and  stronger  brains 
become  greater.  Nature  puts  her  premium  on  the  development 
of  brains  by  rewarding  them  higher.  When  a gardener  wants  to 
force  forward  some  Black  Hamburg’s,  he  enriches  the  soil  and 
stimulates  the  growth  of  the  vine,  and  by  the  craft  of  his  art  turns 
the  energies  of  the  organism  into  the  direction  of  grape-bearing. 
Society  does  precisely  so  with  the  growth  of  brains. 

I do  not  at  all  mean  to  say  that  capital  may  not  take  an  ex- 
cessive share  of  the  profits  of  industry.  This  is  a question  to  be 
determined  between  the  two  partners  in  all  industry,  and  it  ought 
to  be  determined  calmly  and  peacefully,  like  all  disputes  between 
sensible  men,  and  would  be  so,  doubtless,  were  the  condition  of 
one  of  the  parties  not  so  often  helpless  if  he  retired  from  the 
business.  Society  ought  then  to  secure  for  you  the  conditions 
in  which  you  would  find  a fair  field  on  which  to  contest  this  issue, 
while  it  re-enforces  the  moral  sense  of  the  employer  by  the  press- 
ure of  a public  opinion  demanding  justice. 

Y. . Labor  puts  in  one  final  complaint  against  capital.  “ Grant- 
ing,” it  says,  “ all  that  capital  has  replied  to  my  previous  charges, 
it  remains  indisputable  that  we  are  natural  enemies,  one  of  the 
other.  The  rewards  of  our  conjoint  industry  have  to  be  divided 


30 


between  us,  and  profits  and  wages  must  therefore  stand  in  an  in- 
verse ratio  to  each  other.  Whatever  my  employer  makes,  I lose  ; 
whatever  I make,  my  employer  loses.  Our  interests  are  antag- 
onistic. They  cannot  be  reconciled  by  any  soft,  smooth  talk.” 

There  is,  of  course,  a certain  truth  in  this  comp  aint,  but  it  is 
an  exaggerated  truth.  That  truth  is  simply  the  fact  which  is 
common  to  many  other  relationships  than  that  of  capital  and  labor. 

Every  time  yo u enter  a shop  to  buy  som  thing,  you  and 
the  shopkeeper  stand  over  the  counter  in  very  much  the  same 
relation  in  which  you  and  your  employer  stand.  You  two  are 
buying  and*  selling  ; each  one  trying  to  make  the  best  bargain  for 
himself;  each  one  knowing  perfectly  well  that  whatever  the  other 
man  makes  in  the  bargain  is  made  out  of  him ; and  yet  you  do 
not  leap  at  one  another’s  throat’s  as  mortal  foes.  You  are  a seller 
of  labor  and  your  employer  is  a buyer . of  labor.  A perfectly 
equitable  bargain  is  of  course  to  be  desired  ; but  it  is  to  be  sought 
in  very  much  the  same  way  that  a bargain  in  the  shop  is  sought. 
There  is  just  such  an  inverse  ratio,  between  profits  and  wages  as 
there  is  between  the  shopkeeper  and  the  customer.  If  these  parties 
manage  to  carry  on  their  bargainings  in  a friendly  way,  why 
should  you  strike  an  attitude  of  irreconcilable  antagonism  toward 
the  man  who  seeks  to  buy  the  labor  that  you  offer  for  sale  % 

In  every  firm,  the  partners  stand  in  the  same  relationship  in 
which  you  and  your  employer  stand.  Five  lawyers  in  a firm  must 
needs  divide  in  some  proportion  their  joint  profits ; but  they  do 
not  dream  of  counting  themselves  one  another’s  enemies  because 
what  each  one  takes  from  the  common  income  of  the  firm  has  to 
be  deducted  from  the  sum  divisible  among  the  other  four  members. 
They  do  not  take  one  another  by  the  throats  as  sworn  foes,  but 
rather  join  hands  to  make  the  biggest  possible  amount  for  the 
firm;  content  to  divide  up  according  to  the  relative  services  of  each 
one  ; the  senior  member,  whose  name  and  experience  and  ability 
float  the  firm,  taking  naturally  the  lion’s  share,  but  securing  for 
each  junior  member  an  income  which  he  could  not  of  himself  have 
won. 

The  fact  is  that  you  and  your  employer  are  in  as  real  a sense 
partners  as  the  members  of  a legal  firm.  You  are  working  together 
to  make  common  profits,  which  then  of  course  ought  to  be  divided 
between  you  in  the  ratio  of  your  services  to  the  common  concern, 
just  as  the  profits  of  the  legal  firm  are  divided.  It  would  be  very 
well  for  you  if  you  could  draw  at  once  the  profits  of  capital  and 
labor,  as  it  would  be  very  well  for  the  young  lawyer  if  he  could 
draw  at  once  the  profits  of  the  senior  member  of  the  firm  with 
his  own  profits  as  the  junior  member,  just  taken  into  partnership  ; 
but  if  you  must  have  a partner,  you  must  be  content  to  give  him 
his  share,  and  be  sensible  enough  to  work  together  with  him 
heartily  as  an  ally  and  not  as  an  enemy.  This  is  precisely  the 
position  to-day. 


31 


Whatever  may  be  the  future  of  the  firm  of  capital  and  labor — 
and  I for  one  certainly  believe  that  the  silent  partner  must  be  taken 
into  a larger  share  in  the  concern — as  long  as  it  is  a firm,  so  long 
that  is  as  capital  and  labor  are  two  parties  and  not  one,  so  long 
will  it  be  the  part  of  common  sense  to  recognize  that  the  firm’s 
interests  are  common  interests,  that  both  parties  are  partners,  and 
that  the  more  that  they  make  together  the  more  there  will  be  to 
divide  up  between  them. 

With  all  my  heart  I wish  that  you  could  dispense  with  the  cap- 
italist to-day  and  be  your  own  employer.  Society  at  large  must 
wish  this,  because  it  would  be  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number.  Dispense  with  him  just  as  fast  as  you  can.  But  while 
you  need  him  treat  him  squarely  as  a partner.  Are  you  ready 
now  to  dispense  with  him  ? Have  you  money  enough  laid  by  to 
break  up  the  firm  and  set  up  for  yourself  ? Estimate  the  cost  of  the 
^plant  in  your  factory,  and  answer  this  question  for  yourself.  Have 
you  collectively,  in  your  labor  organizations,  sufficient  savings  to 
drop  out  the  capitalist  from  the  firm  ? I suspect  you  often  have, 
if  you  only  knew  it.  A certain  savings-bank  in  Lowell  had  large 
deposits  from  the  workingmen  of  the  city.  They  lay  there, 
drawing  their  small  interest.  There  came  along  a bright,  enterpris- 
ing man,  having  little  money,  but  the  ability  to  use  money — one  of 
the  capitalizers  who  are  rapidly  becoming  a distinct  class  in  the 
country.  He  borrowed  a large  sum  from  this  savings  bank  and 
set  up  a factory,  into  which  came  many  of  the  very  men  whose 
deposits  he  had  lumped  together  and  used  to  make  himself  an 
employer  of  their  labor.  Might  they  not  have  associated  them- 
selves and  become  their  own  employers  or  might  they  not  have 
hired  him  as  their  manager  % 

The  probable  reason  that  they  did  not  make  themselves  their 
own  employers  was  that  they  were  conscious  of  lacking  the  power 
of  association  necessary  for  such  a business,  and  the  individual 
energy  and  experience  and  power  of  command  essential  to  its 
success.  It  is  the  lack  of  these  factors  which  has  made  co- operative 
production  so  slightly  successful  hitherto.  There  must  be  a head 
to  a factory,  a head  with  natural  powers  of  command.  An  army 
cannot  well  be  run  by  a committee.  That  method  of  management 
has  been  tried  in  the  face  of  the  enemy,  and  the  results  have  not 
been  very  brillj^nt.  Would  you  like  to  trust  yourself  on  a trans- 
atlantic steamer,  that  was  sailed  by  a committee  of  the  crew  ? In 
some  form  or  other,  for  years  to  come,  industry  must  find  natural 
leaders.  Those  leaders  may  hire  their  men  or  their  men  may  hire 
them — as  our  workingmen  doubtless  will  come  to  do,  when  they 
have  developed  their  powers  of  association  higher. 

Until  that  time,  they  must  of  necessity  be  content  to  be  taken 
into  silent  partnership  by  capital — that  is,  by  the  few  men  who 
have  laid  by  enough  to  found  the  costly  plarits  that  are  essential 


to  modern  industry,  and  who  have  developed  mental  power  enough 
to  organize  and  manage  the  large  and  complex  affairs  of  modern 
production.  Until  the  time  comes  that  you  can  offer  yourself  work, 
somebody  must  offer  work  to  you.  Is  the  man  who  now  offers 
you  the  work  in  which  you  are  to  find  bread  and  butter  your 
enemy,  or  is  he  your  friend  ? What  will  you  do  just  now  without 
him  ? Suppose  you  make  the  firm  too  hot  for  him  ? He  can  go 
out  of  the  business,  and  live  perhaps  on  his  income  or  turn  his 
principal  into  some  other  enterprise.  What  are  you  going  to 
do  if  you  break  up  the  firm  ? In  the  present  state  of  society  your 
condition  would  be  helpless.  The  fact  that  it  would  be  so  is  one  of 
the  most  alarming  features  of  our  social  order  ; one  that  calls  upon 
us  all  to  see  that  it  is  corrected,  so  that  the  natural  equation  of  the 
problem  of  distributing  the  rewards  of  industry  may  be  worked 
out  freely  and  fairly.  But,  meanwhile,  do  not  shut  your  eyes  to 
the  facts  of  the  situation. 

Will  it  pay  you  to  make  it  so  hot  for  your  employer  as  to  disgust 
him  with  the  concern  ? You  can  doubtless  worry  him  well-nigh 
to  death,  but  how  much  will  that  increase  the  productivity  of  the 
firm  in  which  you  are  a partner?  A certain  woman,  who  has 
some  prominence  among  the  Knights  of  Labor  as  an  eloquent 
champion  of  the  order,  in  the  course  of  a recent  conversation  kept 
repeating  with  a malicious  tone  the  refrain : “ We  can  injure  the 
manufacturers.”  Judging  from  the  action  of  some  of  your  associ- 
ates over  in  Long  Island  City  lately,  this  sister  seems  to  have 
expressed  your  views  of  the  way  to  bring  capital  to  terms.  Doubt- 
less you  can  ail  injure  the  manufacturers,  but  have  you  worked 
out  in  your  minds  the  problem  of  how  their  injury  is  going  to 
benefit  you  ? Are  they  to  be  thus  made  more  friendly  to  you  ? 
Are  they  to  be  thus  made  more  able  to  allow  you  bigger  wages  ? 
You  can  ruin  them  if  you  will — but  then  when  they  close  up  their 
mills  where  are  you  going  to  be  ? Do  you  make  much  by  lying  idle  ? 
My  hands  can  easily  enough  injure  my  head,  and  knock  what  little 
brains  I have  into  a very  inactive  condition,  but  I am  not  aware 
that  my  hands  will  be  any  the  richer  in  warm,  red  blood  or  in  sup- 
plies of  nervous  energy,  because  of  this  heroic  treatment  of  my 
very  defective  head. 

So  long  as  you  are  obliged  to  seek  an  alliance  with  capital, 
remember,  I pray  you,  that,  as  Chief  Arthur  lately  assured  you,  your 
partner  has  rights  that  you  are  bound  to  respect,  and  which  you 
must  needs  respect  if  you  expect  him  to  work  with  you. 

Your  employers  plant  is  his  property.  You  have  no  right 
to  injure  it. 

Your  employer  has  the  right  to  control  the  business  that  is 
carried  on  upon  the  plant  which  he  has  provided  and  by  the  knowl- 
edge and  experience  which  he  supplies.  It  is  not  fair  to  expect 
him  to  carry  on  the  business  in  which  he  has  risked  his  capital  by 


the  dictation  of  the  men  who  may  be  with  him  to-day  and  may 
have  left  him  to-morrow. 

You  have  a right  to  refuse  to  work  for  him  if  the  terms  are 
not  made  satisfactory  to  you ; but  you  have  no  right  to  impose 
yourself  upon  him  against  his  will.  I believe  thoroughly  that 
labor  has  the  right  to  claim  from  society  at  large  that  it  shall  have 
a chance  of  being  employed  by  others  or  of  finding  employment 
for  itself.  That  is  the  right  to  “ life  ” which  is  one  of  man's  un- 
alienable rights,  according  to  our  Declaration  of  Independence. 
No  people  can  afford  to  have  a large  body  of  labor  shut  per- 
manently out  from  the  opportunity  of  self-support.  But  this  is 
quite  a different  question  from  the  right  of  the  individual  laborer 
upon  the  individual  employer. 

Your  employer  has  the  right  to  seek  other  labor,  if  you  cannot 
agree  with  him  as  to  terms.  You  have  no  right  whatever,  legal 
or  moral,  to  shut  out  from  him  other  men  who  may  be  standing 
without  employment,  and  who  are  ready  to  accept  employment 
upon  the  terms  which  he  offers.  I understand  well  enough  your 
idea  in  committing  this  mistake.  As  I have  already  intimated, 
the  existence  of  a large  body  of  unemployed  labor  is  a constant 
menace  to  labor  at  large.  All  who  care  for  the  welfare  of  labor 
should  join  hands  to  secure  some  means  of  minimizing  this  danger. 
But  if  there  be  other  men  in  this  city  willing  to  take  the  place 
of  the  strikers  on  the  Third  Avenue  road — however  unjustifiable 
the  action  of  the  company  may  have  been — the  conductors  and 
drivers  who  have  left  the  employ  of  that  company  can  keep  them 
out  of  such  work  only  by  a direct  encroachment  upon  the  right 
of  the  employer. 

The  employer  has  a right  to  demand  that,  if  you  are  dissatified 
with  the  terms  of  partnership,  you  shall  not  break  up  the  partner- 
ship firm  without  due  notice,  and  never  without  an  attempt,  first 
of  all,  to  effect  a peaceful  adjustment  of  any  differences.  This  is 
the  simple,  necessary  law  of  any  partnership — without  which  its 
continuance  is  impossible.  You  have  the  perfect  right,  my  friend, 
to  strike.  You  can  often  win  your  point  by  striking.  The  notion 
of  most  people  that  strikes  are  almost  universally  failures  you 
know  to  be  far  from  the  fact.  The  last  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
Statistics  of  Labor  of  our  own  State  shows  that  out  of  222  strikes 
in  the  city  last  year  only  34  failed,  while  59  are  still  pending 
and  129  have  succeeded,  in  whole  or  in  part.  But  you  ought  to 
feel  more  keenly  than  any  one  else  the  frightful  cost  with  which 
such  success  is  won.  Do  you  think  that  the  increase  of  wages 
won  by  the  strikes  of  this  year  has  counter-balanced  the  loss 
of  wages  caused  by  the  idleness  of  the  strikers  ? Strikes,  as  the 
habitual  method  of  enforcing  the  demands  of  labor,  would  be  ruin- 
ous to  the  production  out  of  which  all  wages  must  come.  Let  a 
chronic  state  of  striking  be  induced  and  how  much  capital  would 


34 


be  invested  in  industry?  Already  the  business  boom  which  wa£ 
anticipated  for  this  spring  has  been  lost  by  capital’s  fear  to  take 
up  any  contracts  in  the  present  attitude  of  labor.  How  much 
more  will  the  aggregate  production  of  the  year  have  to  divide 
between  the  industrial  partners  by  this  epidemic  of  strikes  ? The 
strike  may  and  probably  must  be  the  last  resource  of  labor,  just  as 
war  is  the  last  resource  of  nations.  But,  like  war,  it  is  too  costly  to 
resort  to  without  first  trying  other  means  of  adjusting  differences. 

Your  employer  has  the  right  to  the  good-will  of  his  business. 
You  have  doubtless  the  right  to  use  moral  suasion  to  draw  away 
custom  from  him,  and  to  thus  punish  him  for  his  bad  treatment 
of  you  ; but  you  have  no  right  whatever  to  step  beyond  the  limits 
of  moral  suasion  and,  by  the  tyranny  of  public  opinion  or  by  the 
fear  of  physical  violence,  drive  away  his  ciistom  from  him.  The 
boycott  is  a weapon  cf  tremendous  power,  doubtless,  but  it  may 
become  the  power  of  a reign  of  terror.  In  some  of  the  forms  in 
which  it  has  been  used  lately  it  is  a direct  interference  with  the 
proprietary  rights  of  a business,  which  law  cannot  allow.  In 
these  forms,  it  is  an  un-American  method  of  redressing  grievances, 
which  this  people  will  always  be  quick  to  condemn,  as  has  been 
seen  this  spring  when  our  citizens  rallied  to  the  support  of  Mrs. 
Gray. 

Your  employer  has  the  right  to  demand  that  you  shall  not 
arbitrarily  limit  his  power  of  production.  You  have  of  course  a 
right  to  say  how  many  hours  you  will  work  for  him,  and  to  decline 
to  work  beyond  that  time;  but  you  have  no  right  whatever  to 
deny  to  him  the  use  of  his  plant  beyond  the  limit  which  you  fix 
for  yourself,  nor  to  deny  to  other  workmen  the  use  of  their 
power  of  labor  to  any  extent  that  they  may  feel  disposed  to  use  it. 
The  employer’s  right  here  will  prove  to  ^e  your  interest. 

There  is  no  greater  fallacy  current  among  our  workingmen  to- 
day than  the  notion  that  they  can  improve  their  condition  by 
lessening  the  production  of  the  country.  On  every  hand  one  hears 
the  talk  that  what  is  needed  is  a better  distribution  of  wealth. 
Doubtless — and  let  us  all  join  to  aid  in  this  more  equable,  more 
brotherly  distribution,  by  the  force  of  public  opinion  and  by  law, 
wherever  it  is  possible  to  use  the  strong  hand  of  legislation 
wisely.  But  that  which  first  is  needed  is  greater  production — that 
is,  more  to  distribute  fairly.  Do  you  think  we  have  enough  to  sat- 
isfy all  wants,  in  our  present  aggregate  wealth?  Were  our 
present  annual  increase  of  wealth  divided  up  equally  among  our 
people,  every  man  and  woman  and  child  would  get  50  cents  a day. 
Is  that  your  idea  of  the  millennium?  Would  we  not  have  a little 
jollier  millennium  if  the  share  to  each  of  us  was  a dollar  a day  ? 
You  have  the  right  to  eat  no  more  than  half  a meal — but  you  do 
not  dream  of  growing  fat  upon  this  right. 

But  I may  not  push  these  illustrations  further.  What  is 


35 


needed  now  is  that  labor  and  capital  shall  recognize  each  in  the 
other  a partner — an  ally  and  not  a foe,  a friend  and  not  an  en- 
emy; and  that  they  shall  work  together  for  their  common  good. 

I maintained  last  Sunday  the  right  of  labor  to  organize  on 
behalf  of  its  juht  claims,  and  therefore,  I may  to  day,  with  the 
greater  fran  sness,  urge  labor  not  to  turn  the  mighty  organizations 
which  it  is  developing  into  mere  means  of  attack  upon  the  power 
which  after  ail  is  less  a rival  than  an  associate.  I warn  you,  my 
friends,  distinctly,  that  if  some  of  the  methods  which  you  are 
pursuing  at  present  are  persisted  in,  you  will  goad  capital  into 
opposing  organizations — who:-e  power  will  be  more  tremendous 
and  may  be  more  despotic  than  anything  you  have  hitherto 
confronted.  Watch  your  papers  and  you  will  see  the  signs  of 
the  times.  If  you  have  such  difficulty  in  contending  with  capital 
when  it  is  unorganized,  what  will  be  the  task  of  grappling  with 
employers  when  they  are  banced  together  in  compact  association? 

VI.  I have  thus  sought  to-day  to  pass  in  review  labor’s 
complaints  against  capital  and  capital’s  answers  to  those  complaints. 
Labor  feels  itself  wronged  by  being  poor — it  is  urged  first  of 
all  to  right  the  wrongs  which  it  is  committing  against  itself.  Labor 
looks  with  suspicion  on  wealth — it  should  distinguish  between 
the  legitimate  wealth  which  the  employer  wins  by  honest  industry 
and  the  respectable  robberies  of  the  freebooters  of  the  business 
world.  Labor  claims  to  create  all  wealth  and  demands  its  rights — 
it  must  learn  that  brains  as  wrell  as  brawn  work,  that  capital  as  well 
as  labor  produces,  and  be  content  to  share  the  rewards  of  the 
common  toil.  Labor  complains  that  more  than  a fair  share  goes 
to  the  employer — it  is  reminded  that  brains  are  dear  and  that  it 
must  expect  to  pay  highly  for  the  high  quality  of  the  service  ren- 
dered by  the  employer.  Labor  insists  that  capital  is  its  natural 
enemy,  between  whom  and  itself  there  must  be  strife — it  is  pointed 
to  the  fact  that  the  two  are  partners,  who  should  work  together 
for  their  common  interests. 

At  the  close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  Ernest  Kenan  ad- 
dressed an  impassioned  appeal  to  his  countrymen  to  face  the  facts 
of  the  situation,  however  hard  those  facts  might  be.  His  country- 
men thought  him  unpatriotic,  because  he  told  them  the  truth.  None 
the  less,  they  have  come  slowly  to  recognize  that  there  is  no  pros- 
perity possible  in  shirking  facts,  and  that  he  was  their  true  friend 
in  opening  their  eyes  to  the  realities  of  the  situation. 

My  words  may  have  seemed  hard  to  you,  my  friends,  who  are 
workingmen.  God  knows  I have  no  wish  to  speak  hardly.  My 
heart  is  full  of  the  sincerest  sympathy  for  you  My  soul  is  stirred 
with  indignation  when  I contemplate  the  ways  in  which  society  has 
handicapped  you  in  the  race  for  life.  My  poor  powers  are  at  the 
service  of  your  cause.  All  true  men  feel  for  you,  and  long  to  lend  a 
hand  in  bettering  your  condition.  To  secure  for  you  the  best 
possible  lot  is  coming  to  be  recognized  as  the  task  of  the  State. 


36 


But,  none  the  less,  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  blinking  facts.  In  so 
far  as  you  are  at  fault  for  your  condition,  you  must  help  yourselves 
before  other  help  can  be  of  real  assistance  to  you.  Instead  of 
cherishing  illusions,  you  must  prick  your  bubbles  and  find  out  what 
you  hold  in  your  hand.  You  must  thus  face  the  truth  that,  what- 
ever the  future  may  have  in  store  for  you,  the  present  binds  up  la- 
bor with  capital  in  common  interests. 

The  fight  that  you  have  to  make  is  not  so  much  . against  capital, 
as  with  capital  against  your*  common  foes.  The  fact  is  that  capital 
and  labor  are  both  in  the  same  boat  to-day  and  are  trying  to  make 
headway  against  unfavorable  currents  that  are  setting  in  from  many 
quarters.  Your  wages  are  low,  and  your  employer’s  profits  are 
small.  You  find  little  chance  for  work  because  he  finds  little  chance 
for  safe  and  profitable  investments.  Let  me  give  you  a striking 
illustration  of  this  fact.  You  have  all  noted  doubtless  the  danger- 
ous revolt  of  labor  in  Belgium,  lately.  The  whole  of  the  little  king- 
dom has  been  agitated  by  this  convulsion.  It  turns  out  that  the 
miners  with  whom  the  struggle  originated  were  living  on  bread, 
without  even  butterine — upon  the  very  verge  of  starvation  ; while 
the  capital  invested  in  the  mines  was  reaping  only  2 per  cent.  The 
London  Times  is  my  authority  for  this  statement.  Let  capital  and 
labor  pool  their  issues  and  turn  their  combined  forces  against  their 
common  foes.  What  these  are  I propose  at  least  to  indicate  hereafter. 

Friends,  you  know  well  the  story  of  the  exodus  of  the  children 
of  Israel.  How  sad  the  tale  of  their  bondage  in  Egypt  ! How 
heroic  their  resolve  to  free  themselves ! How  bright  their  visions 
of  the  promised  land,  a land  “ flowing  with  milk  and  honey ! ” 
How  near  seemed  that  land,  yet  how  long  it  took  them  to  gain  it, 
wandering  about  in  the  wilderness  of  Arabia  for  a whole  generation  ! 
There  was  a short  cut  across  the  desert,  but,  for  good  reason  per- 
haps, they  took  the  wrong  road. 

Heed  well  that  ancient  story.  You  sigh  “ by  reason  of  the 
bondage  ” of  our  industrial  system.  You  lift  your  eyes  to  the 
promised  land  of  which  your  prophets  are  telling  you : “ a land 
whose  stones  are  iron  and  out  of  whose  hills  thou  mayest  dig 
brass  ; ” the  land  wdiose  title  vests  in  the  Lord,  that  it  may  be  the 
common  heritage  of  his  children,  to  the  end  “ that  there  be  no  poor 
among  you.”  No  mirage,  that  vision  of  the  promised  land,  but  a 
substantial  Canaan,  which  you  shall  yet  win  if  you  will.  You  vow 
to  free  yourselves  from  the  task-master’s  lash  and  win  your  freedom, 
and  you  band  yourselves  together  for  the  heroic  effort  of  the  new 
War  of  Economic  Independence.  You  have  allies  waiting  to  help 
you.  The  Omnipotent  one  hath  heard  your  groaning — He  will 
come  down  to  deliver  you.  Your  Moses  even  now  lies  in  some  ark 
of  bulrushes.  Judgments  mighty  and  terrible  will  be  wrought  for 
your  deliverance.  But  when  your  great  host  goes  forth  from  Egypt, 
see  that  ye  take  not  the  wrong  road  to  Canaan  lest  ye  wander  in 
the  wilderness  forty  years ! 


37 


SOCIETY’S  VIEW  OF  THE  SITUATION. 

There  is  a forgotten  man  back  of  the  present  controversy  be- 
tween capita]  and  labor.  His  name  is  Society.  There  are  about 
50,000  manufacturers  in  the  country,  and  about  3,800,000  men  and 
women  employed  in  manufacturing,  mechanical,  and  mining  indus 
tries.  The  population  of  the  country  is  over  50,000,000.  The 
forgotten  man  is  a bigger  man  than  either  party  in  the  present 
contest. 

"Without  him,  neither  of  them  would  find  much  value  in  the 
result  of  their  combined  production.  Society  at  large  makes  the 
demand  which  calls  forth  all  supply,  and  creates  the  security  with- 
out which  there  would  be  no  wealth.  Society  has  a right  to  a 
voice  in  this  dispute. 

The  forgotten  man  is  really  capital  under  another  name  and 
labor  in  changed  clothes.  Employer  and  employee  alike  are  more 
than  either  employer  and  employee.  Each  is  a consumer  as  well 
as  a producer.  Each  stands  in  many  other  relationships  than  those 
involved  in  the  problem  of  capital  and  labor.  Each  is  a citizen  of 
a great  nation,  a participator  in  a noble  civilization.  Each  has  need 
to  rise  above  the  personal  aspects  of  the  present  struggle  and  view 
it  from  the  stand-point  of  society. 

Whatever  makes  life  worth  living,  society  has  embodied  in  her 
institutions,  and  on  behalf  of  these  she  lifts  up  her  voice  to-day 
against  the  mad  strife  of  her  own  children.  If  I owned  a house  and 
rented  two  rooms  out  to  different  families,  I should  decidedly 
object  to  their  quarrelling  so  savagely  as  to  endanger  my  property. 
However  indisposed  to  interfere  in  their  quarrel,  I should  not 
stand  silently  by  when  I saw  them  setting  fire  to  my  premises. 

I.  The  immediate  evils  of  the  present  disagreement  between 
capital  and  labor  are  serious  enough.  This  strife  is  crippling  the 
resources  of  the  workingmen  of  the  country  and  shrinking  the 
profits  of  capital.  It  is  checking  production  on  every  hand  and 
arresting  the  natural  revival  of  business  which  was  due  this  spring. 
It  is,  as  was  lately  seen  in  St.  Louis,  laying  an  embargo  upon 
the  general  traffic  of  the  land  and  at  times  actually  blockading  the 
leading  ports  of  our  internal  commerce.  It  is  frightening  off  capi- 
tal from  new  investments  which  it  would  otherwise  be  now  seeking. 
It  is  accumulating  in  the  labor  market  an  increasing  body  of  un- 
employed or  partially  employed  men,  whose  inability  to  demand 
continues  to  yet  further  to  depress  the  productive  power  of  the 
country,  while  it  leaves  themselves  in  bitter  want.  It  is  thus  im- 
poverishing the  nation.  It  is  killing  the  goose  that  lays  the  golden 
egg.  Society  at  large  is  suffering  in  this  arrest  of  trade.  The 
development  of  our  civilization  is  thus  temporarily  checked.  The 
nobler  life  of  man  languishes  in  the  economic  stagnation.  A 
continuance  of  the  present  contest  means  a prolongation  of  the 


38 


industrial  depression,  whose  consequences  will  therefore  be  far- 

reaching  and  lamentable. 

II.  Nor  is  this  all  the  evil.  Acute  inflammation  prolonged 
develops  chronic  diseases.  Angry  words  pass  readily  into  angrier 
blows,  and  the  quarrel  may  end  in  a fight  in  which  society’s  prem- 
ises may  easily  be  wrapt  in  flames.  On  the  one  hand  labor  is 
organizing  as  never  before,  and  is  using  its  newfound  power 
to  deal  summarily  with  its  supposed  enemy,  capital.  On  the 
other  band  capital  is  also  organizing.  When  one  is  hit  hard  be- 
tween the  eyes  it  is  a natural  impulse  to  hit  back  with  equal  vigor. 
Capital  at  present  is  clinching  its  fists  to  deliver  its  return  blows 
straight  from  the  shoulder.  The  lock-out  -is  answering  the  strike, 
the  black-list  is  replying  to  the  boycott,  manufacturing  and  trade 
associations  are  drawing  up  into  line  over  against  labor  unions. 
Each  further  development  of  aggressiveness  on  either  side  will 
naturally  provoke  yet  further  aggressiveness  on  the  opposite  side. 
The  immediate  outlook  is  therefore  stormy.  We  may  be  entering 
an  era  of  social  as  well  as  physical  cyclones. 

Capital  and  labor  alike  may  do  things  in  hot  blood  which  the 
sober  sense  of  either  would  utterly  condemn.  Local  anarchy  may 
easily  be  precipitated  out  of  such  a strife. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  our  country,  anarchy  is  be- 
ing preached  among  us  as  a gospel.  Missionaries  of  the  old  world 
have  come  with  these  good  tidings  of  hatred.  A moral  epidemic  is 
sweeping  over  our  western  civilization,  a madness  of  despair.  A 
savant  like  Elise  Recluse  and  an  aristocrat  like  Prince  Krapotkine 
are  preaching  this  bad-spell  with  the  fervor  of  enthusiasts.  Passing 
strange  as  it  may  seem  to  us,  these  men  are  teaching  the  poor  that 
there  is  no  hope  save  in  the  utter  destruction  of  the  social  order  as 
it  exists.  When  our  present  tyrannous  institutions  are  swept  away, 
so  they  tell  the  people  who  listen  to  them,  then  there  may  rise  a 
new  order  of  plenty.  When  such  men  preach  this  gospel  is  it  any 
wonder  that  the  ignorant  and  hungry  are  carried  away  by  this  dream 
of  despair  ? * 

Within  the  last  two  weeks  I have  received  a couple  of  letters 
plainly  avowing  anarchism  as  the  last  resource  of  labor.  If  you 
know  anything  of  the  wilder  labor  sheets  of  this  country,  you  will 
understand  the  significance  of  such  letters.  For  years  past,  men 
have  been  taught  to  prepare  for  just  such  vengeance  against  society. 
Paris  never  heard  more  frantic  appeals  to  class-hatred  than  our 
great  cities  have  heard  within  the  last  half  decade.  This  wretched 
creature.  Most,  has  not  only  gone  about  freely  uttering  his  inflam- 
matory appeals,'  but  has  deliberately  given  to  the  public  a book 
entitled  “ The  Science  of  Revolutionary  Warfare,  an  Introductory 
Hand-book  to  the  Preparation  and  Use  of  Nitro-Glycerine,  Dyna- 
mite, Gun  Cotton,  Bombs,  Poison,  etc.”  This  fiendish  book  even 
stoops  to  give  lessons  in  the  warfare  of  the  savages.  It  directs 


34 


concerning  the  use  of  poisoned  weapons.  “ The  best  of  all  poisons,” 
he  says,  u is  the  poison  of  the  dead  human  body.”  Do  not  let  us 
blind  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  just  such  moral  monsters  have 
been  begotten  by  society,  creatures  of  whom  Guiteau  was  a type, 
men  half  lunatics,  half  knaves,  and  then  armed  with  the  weapons  of 
the  Titans. 

In  themselves,  such  fiends  in  human  shape  can  have  little 
power,  but,  given  a state  of  things  such  as  that  into  which  we  are 
drifting — hosts  of  idle  men  proscribed  and  -unable  to  find  work, 
hungry  and  savage  with  want — and  these  monsters  have  the  follow- 
ing out  of  which  they  may  readily  precipitate  disorders  vastly  worse 
than  any  our  land  has  seen.  Well  says  Most’s  paper  : u Five  hun- 
dred revolutionists,  each  provided  with  half  a dozen  bombs  and 
working  in  concert  could  produce  such  a panic  in  a great  city  that 
a small  number  of  determined  men  might  get  possession  of  all  com- 
manding points.”  Back  of  such  half-crazy  creatures  are  associa- 
tions which  for  several  years  have  been  deliberately  and  systemati- 
cally carrying  on  the  propaganda  of  just  such ‘principles  ; societies 
organizing  the  more  desperate  elements  of  labor  for  a violent  i evo- 
lution. A wide-spread  strike  at  any  time  may  give  the  opportunity 
for  which  these  anarchists  lie  in  wait.  We  saw  in  our  own  city 
within  a few  weeks  how  near  we  might  thus  be  to  the  most  serious 
disorders.  New  York  cannot  surely  have  forgotten  so  soon  the 
dreadful  scenes  of  the  draft  riot ! The  country  cannot  surely  have 
forgotten  already  how  near  it  stood  to  the  verge  of  a frightful  chaos 
in  1877 ! 

I have  no  fear  for  any  general  or  prolonged  disorders  from  the 
action  of  our  bona  fide  workingmen.  No  grander  illustration  of 
heroism  has  ever  been  given  in  history  than  that  which  the  opera- 
tives of  the  Lancashire  Cotton  Mills  presented  when,  brought 
well-nigh  to  starvation  through  our  Civil  War,  they  endured  silently, 
patiently,  peacefully,  for  the  sake  of  the  principle  that  was  at  stake. 
But,  when  the  camp-followers  of  the  hosts  of  labor  are  these  demons 
of  anarchy,  we  may  well  dread  the  scenes  that  may  follow  our  eco- 
nomic conflict. 

III.  Capital  and  labor  are  alike  recruiting  for  the  armies  of  an- 
archism. Hunger  is  always  savage.  One  who  sees  wife  and  children 
crying  for  food  is  not  apt  to  measure  consequences  carefully.  The 
man  who  lifts  his  two  fingers  to  order  out  hundreds  of  hands  and 
leave  them  in  idleness  is  enlisting  followers  for  anarchism.  The 
Order  or  Union  that  uses  the  strike  carelessly  must  hold  itself  in 
part  responsible  for  the  desperation  which  the  anarchist  turns  into 
bombs.  The  association  of  employers  which  wages  war,  not  against 
the  abuses  of  labor  organizations  but  against  their  existence,  must 
hold  itself  in  part  responsible  for  the  consequences  that  follow  upon 
such  a running  up  of  the  black  flag. 

I know  a man  of  superior  mind,  who,  a few  years  ago,  was  a 


40 


mill  band  in  a New  England  factory.  He  bad  worked  in  that  same 
mill  from  the  time  be  landed  on  our  shores.  The  owners  of  that 
mill  one  day  placed  in  bis  hands,  as  in  the  hands  of  the  other  oper- 
atives, an  ironclad  contract,  forbidding  his  connection  with  any  la- 
bor asociation,  on  pain  of  instant  dismissal.  He  declined  to  sign 
the  paper,  and  lost  his  place.  Wandering  from  mill  to  mill,  he 
found  everywhere,  on  one  excuse  and  another,  work  denied  him,  urn 
til  it  dawned  upon  him  that  he  was  ostracised  throughout  New 
Ed  gland,  and  that  not  a cotton  mill  was  open  to  him.  On  the 
verge  of  starvation,  maddened  by  despair,  having  turned  every 
whither  for  some  opening  through  which  might  come  bread  for  his 
babies,  he  one  day  took  wife  and  children  with  him  to  the  mayor’s 
office,  carrying  in  his  pocket  a revolver — determined,  as  he  told  me 
afterward,  to  stay  there  until  some  work  was  found  him  or  to  shoot 
the  man  who  tried  to  remove  him.  If  this  be  the  action  of  the  black- 
list upon  a man  of  brains,  what  will  be  its  infuriating  influence  upon 
the  rank  and  file  of  labor?  Our  great  employers  seem  bent  on  go- 
ing into  the  business  of  manufacturing  such  human  dynamite. 

Nor  is  this  all  our  danger.  Back  of  our  embittered  working- 
men, back  of  their  monstrous  camp-following,  stands  the  great 
rabble  of  the  criminal  population  of  our  cities.  We  must  never 
forget  that  just  below  the  fair  surface  of  our  civilization  there  is 
a genuine  barbarism  ; that  below  the  New  York  of  wffiich  we  know 
there  is  a city  of  criminals,  a villainous  population  ever  ready 
to  swarm  to  the  surface,  when  the  mechanism  of  society  comes 
to  a stand-still.  Let  the  arm  of  the  law  be  paralyzed  for  a few 
days,  let  travel  be  stopped  and  communication  be  cut  off  while 
mobs  are  in  our  streets,  and  who  can  venture  to  predict  the  scenes 
that  may  ensue  ? 

IV.  These  visions  are  sombre  enough,  but  they  are  not  the 
darkest  shadows  in  the  back-ground  for  the  lover  of  humanity. 
Society  will  survive  such  shocks,  though  our  streets  run  in  blood. 
Order  will  be  restored  and  civilization  will  be  maintained.  But  are 
we  sure  that  the  reality  of  the  Republic  may  not  disappear,  as  again 
and  again  republics  have  thus  disappeared  ? No  one  who  reads 
history  with  his  eyes  open  should  be  blind  to  the  fact  that  through 
just  such  experiences  the  greatest  republics  of  antiquity  perished. 

We  wonder  at  the  instability  of  those  beautiful  Greek  repub- 
lics ; but  we  may  cease  to  ^vender  when  we  perceive  the  facts  on 
which  the  muse  of  history  has  not  cared  much  to  dwell — being  too 
busy  with  tales  of  court  and  camp.  Greece  established  equal  politi- 
cal rights  for  all  her  citizens,  but  failed  to  develop  any  equality 
of  conditions.  Growing  economic  inequalities,  with  the  growing 
social  inequalities  thus  involved,  rent  each  Greek  city  into 
classes,  between  which  a deepening  strife  ensued.  Plato  wrote: 
“ Each  of  the  Greek  states  is  not  really  a single  state,  but  comprises 
at  least  two;  one  composed  of  the  rich,  the  other  of  the  poor.” 


41 


A modern  French  student  declares  that : “ The  Greek  cities  were 
always  fluctuating  between  two  revolutions,  the  one  to  despoil  the 
rich,  the  other  to  reinstate  them  in  possession  of  their  fortune. 
This  lasted  from  the  Peloponnesian  war  to  the  conquest  of  Greece 
by  the  Romans.” 

Rome  tells  the  same  story.  Its  history  turns  upon  the  ever 
embittering  strife  between  patrician  and  plebeian  ; beginning  with 
peaceful  political  agitation,  but  ending  in  bloody  revolutions  and 
bloodier  counter  revolutions ; Marius  and  Sylla  taking  turns  at 
converting  the  seven  hilled  city  into  a hell  of  demons.  When  the 
strain  grew  too  severe,  when  civic  strife  became  chronic,  when 
property  lost  security  and  the  social  order  shook  with  the  convul- 
sions of  the  proletariat,  then  came  the  Caesar,  the  savior  of  society, 
and  the  republic  disappeared  in  the  empire. 

Our  modern  world  has  not  escaped  the  ancient  danger.  It 
tends  toward  democracy,  yet  democracy,  while  realizing  political 
equality,  fails  thus  far  to  realize  any  approach  to  equality  of 
economic  and  social  conditions.  De  Tocqueville  pointed  out  that, 
such  being  the  case,  democracy  must  develop  social  strife.  Out 
*of  that  strife  may  come  the  worst  of  dangers  for  our  Republic. 
Macaulay  left  this  prophecy,  which  it  behooves  us  now  to  ponder 
well : “ The  day  will  come  when,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  a mul- 
titude of  people,  not  one  of  whom  has  had  more  than  half  a 
breakfast,  or  expects  to  have  more  than  half  a dinner,  will  choose  a 
legislature.  Is  it  possible  to  doubt  what  sort  of  legislature  will 
be  chosen  ? On  one  side  is  a statesman  preaching  patience,  respect 
for  vested  rights,  strict  observance  of  public  faith ; on  the  other 
is  a demagogue  ranting  about  the  tyranny  of  capitalists  and  usurers, 
and  asking  why  anybody  should  be  permitted  to  drink  champagne 
and  to  ride  in  a carriage,  while  thousands  of  honest  folks  are  in 
want  of  necessaries.  Which  of  the  two  candidates  is  likely  to  be 
preferred  by  the  workingman  who  hears  his  children  crying  for 
more  bread  ? I seriously  apprehend  that  you  will,  in  some  such 
season  of  adversity  as  I have  described,  do  things  which  will 
prevent  prosperity  from  returning.  Either  some  Caesar  or  Napoleon 
will  seize  the  reins  of  government  with  a strong  hand,  or  your 
republic  will  be  as  fearfully  plundered  and  laid  waste  by  barbar- 
ians in  the  twentieth  century  as  the  Roman  empire  was  in  the  fifth  ; 
with  this  difference — that  the  Huns  and  Vandals  who  ravaged  the 
Roman  empire  came  from  without,  and  that  your  Huns  and  Vandals 
will  have  been  engendered  within  your  own  country  and  by  your 
own  institutions.” 

What  would  Macaulay  have  said  could  he  have  seen  the  Cab 
ifornia  Constitution  passed  a few  years  ago ! We  have  thus  actually 
found  one  of  the  dangers  to  which  he  referred  coming  true  Already 
at  the  end  of  our  first  Centenniad,  we  hear  the  whispers  which  warn 
us  that  some  of  our  wisest  and  best  men  have  been  anticipating  the 


42 


possibility  of  some  fulfillment  of  the  other  alternative  of  his  proph- 
ecy. A few  years  ago,  one  of  the  leading  Presbyterian  divines  of 
our  country,  in  some  lectures  upon  socialism,  gave  utterance  to  this 
portentous  omen  : “ It  is  no  procession  of  peaceful  industries  that 
I see  marching  now.  Labor  and  capital,  from  opposite  camps,  are 
moving  toward  one  another.  * * * * It  may  be  to  meet  as 
Pompey  and  Caesar  met  at  Pharsalia.  I confess  I expect  no 
Csesar.  But  then  I expect  to  see  this  communistic  madness  rebuked 
and  ended.  If  not  rebuked  and  ended,  I shall  have  to  say,  as 
many  a sad-eyed  Roman  must  have  said  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago,  I prefer  Civilization  to  the  Republic After  the  riot  in  Chi- 
cago, Professor  Swing  was  reported  as  echoing  this  word  of  Dr. 
Hitchcock. 

Woe  for  us,  woe  for  the  world  if  already,  in  the  first  shock  of 
this  great  contest,  we  are  to  prepare  ourselves  even  to  contemplate 
the  possibility  of  surrendering  those  free  institutions  for  which 
our  fathers  toiled,  in  which,  the  hopes  of  humanity  rest.  Yet 
no  one  who  has  watched  the  signs  of  the  times  during  the  last  few 
years  can  doubt  that  these  two  utterances  are  fair  expressions  of  the 
frightened  feeling  that  is  spreading  through  our  midst,  and  that 
may  readily  crystalize,  in  times  of  renewed  danger,  into  actions 
readily  taken  but  not  to  be  undone  again  save  by  bloodier  revolu- 
tions than  those  through  which  fell  the  monarchies  of  old.  It 
would  not  require  many  panics  for  Property  to  cry  aloud  for  some 
strong  man  to  come  forth  as  the  Savior  of  Society.  The  coup  d'etat 
would  be  easily  wrought.  The  old  form  of  freedom  might  continue, 
as  the  old  form  of  liberty  continued  in  Rome — the  ghost  of  a dead 
republic.  Our  Republic  could  be  Mexicanized  without  any  change 
of  titles.  Let  us  then  ponder  the  observation  of  one  of  the  lead- 
ing papers  of  Europe  upon  our  recent  labor  riots : “ The  true  trial 
of  republican  institutions  is  now  coming  on.” 

I am  not  an  alarmist.  But,  reading  history  and  watching  the 
signs  of  the  times,  to  me  it  seems  plain  that  we  are  blindly  drift- 
ing into  no  less  serious  dangers  than  these  which  I have  outlined 
before  you. 

Y.  Society  therefore  must  needs  call  on  both  sides  of  this  con- 
flict to  pause,  before  the  lists  are  drawn,  and  contemplate  the  issues 
of  such  a. campaign.  There  is  doubtless  much  to  be  said  on  each 
side,  as  I have  feebly'  tried  to  indicate ; therefore  each  side  needs 
to  approach  the  other  calmly,  considerately,  dispassionately  and  with 
an  open  conscience.  Each  side  is  more  or  less  at  fault,  as  I have 
also  tried  to  show. 

The  essential  fault  of  capital,  as  it  seems  to  one  who  looks  upon 
the  contest  from  the  stand-point  of  society,  is  its  failure  to  recog- 
nize that  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a period  of  economic  and  social 
transition.  The  eighteenth  century  began  the  political  emancipa 
tion  of  the  people.  Midway  in  that  process  the  nineteenth  century 


43 


has  entered  upon  the  most  astonishing  industrial  revolution  of 
history.  Science  has  harnessed  nature’s  forces  to  the  mighty  mech- 
anisms which  would  have  seemed  miracles  to  the  men  of  two  or 
three  generations  ago.  The  conditions  of  industry  and  trade  have 
been  completely  transformed.  Under  this  too  rapid  transform- 
ation the  competitive  system  labors  heavily,  getting  out  of  gear 
every  few  years  and  coming  to  a stand-still,  threatening  to  break 
down  altogether.  Plainly  some  higher  organization  of  the  industrial 
mechanism  is  becoming  a necessity — and  may  therefore  be  ex- 
pected to  develop  in  due  time.  Meanwhile  we  are  between  the  old 
and  the  new  order,  in  a period  of  disorder. 

This  disorder  bears  indeed  heavily  upon  capital,  but  it  bears 
far  more  heavily  upon  labor.  Social  inequalities,  which  of  old 
pressed  lightly  on  workingmen,  gall  sorely  now  that  there  is 
equality  before  the  law.  Even  the  economic  freedom  of  labor  is 
being  endangered  at  the  very  time  that  it  is  entering  upon 
political  freedom.  It  is  inevitable  therefore  that  there  should 
be  the  struggle  that  is  taking  place  to-day.  That  struggle  is 
labor’s  endeavor  to  throw  off  the  burdens  of  the  present  disorder, 
and  its  aspiration  for  the  realization  of  the  higher  economic  and 
social  order  which  looms  above  the  horizon. 

It  is  in  the  interests  of  society  that  this  evolution  should  progress 
naturally.  The  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  demands  a 
more  equitable  distribution  of  wealth,  a higher  general  level ; even 
though  that  levelling  upward  should  reduce  the  mountain  tops 
of  wealth  which  now  tower  above  our  dark  valleys.  It  is  indispens- 
able to  a republic  that  the  mass  of  the  people  should  be  econom- 
ically free,  and  thus  be  loyal  tot  the  social  order.  Whatever  de- 
velopments are  necessary  to  secure  something  like  an  equitable 
distribution  of  wealth  and  to  provide  for  the  economic  freedom 
of  labor  must  be  sougUt  by  those  who  .have  the  welfare  of  the 
nation  more  at  heart  than  personal  aggrandizement  or  the  priv- 
ileges of  a class.  For  one,  I am  thoroughly  satisfied  that  society 
is  moving  forward  to  such  a higher  industrial  order,  as  the  true 
economic  fruition  of  our  new  political  order. 

This  evolution  may  be  helped  forward — it  cannot  be  per- 
manently thrust  backward.  Its  pathway  can  indeed  be  blocked — 
but  then  its  forces  will  only  rise  and  swell  over  all  obstacles, 
no  longer  in  peaceful  progress  but  in  the  fury  of  the  freshet. 
This  peaceful  evolution  can  readily  be  turned  into  a bloody  revolu- 
tion. This  is  the  danger  which  I apprehend  from  the  side  of 
capital. 

The  essential  fault  of  labor  to-day  seems  to  me  its  failure  to  rec- 
ognize that  this  evolution  of  the  higher  economic  and  social  order 
is  to  be  brought  about  not  through  cataclysms,  but  through  a grad- 
ual, orderly,  peaceful,  natural  development  out  of  the  present  system. 
Labor  dreams  of  gaining  the  millennium,  which  it  has  sighted,  in  a 


44 


bound.  Yain  illusion ! As  Lasalle  taught  the  workingmen  whom 
he  banded  together  in  Germany,  the  economic  millennium  is  to 
come  in  slowly  and  gradually.  The  roots  of  social  civilization  are 
not  to  be  cut  in  order  to  bring  forth  the  flower.  Better  conditions 
must  be  supplied,  richer  nourishment  must  be  secured,  more  skillful 
care  must  be  devoted  to  the  plant  and  thus  the  life  must  strain 
forth  toward  its  beautiful  blossoming.  Legislation  cannot  wind  up 
the  old  order  at  a given  date,  and  establish  from  and  after  a certain 
day  the  new  and  higher  civilization.  Legislation  can  only  facilitate 
the  natural  growth  of  society.  Force  may  be  invoked,  but  force  is 
more  apt  to  wreck  than  to  build,  more  potent  to  destroy  than  to 
create. 

Whatever  the  injustices  and  oppressions  of  our  present  state  of 
society,  those  wrongs  are  to  be  righted  rather  by  constitutional 
treatment  than  by  surgical  operations.  Heroic  remedies  may  cure, 
but  they  may  kill.  The  knife  may  remove  the  tumor,  but  it  may 
sever  the  arteries  and  let  the  patient  bleed  to  death.  Society  can- 
not afford  to  run  any  risks.  Mistakes  would  prove  too  serious  in 
their  consequences  to  be  lightly  ventured. 

The  social  order,  as  it  now  is,  with  all  its  manifold  imperfec- 
tions, is  the  result  of  generations  and  centuries  of  human  toil.  It 
has  been  bought  at  a fearful  cost.  It  has  been  won  through  untold 
sacrifices.  It  has  been  baptized  with  blood  and  tears.  It  repre- 
sents immense  gains  upon  the  past.  It  holds  the  promise  and 
potency  of  vastly  greater  gains.  It  is  growing  the  higher  order 
slowly  but  surely  before  our  eyes.  As  Dr.  Barth,  one  of  the  first 
economic  authorities  of  Germany,  writes : “ Take  a list  of  wages 
wherever  you  please,  and  you  will  always  find  wages  to  have  ad- 
vanced with  rare  interruptions  during  the  last  half  century.”  Even 
that  apparently  most  dangerous  foe  to  labor,  mechanism,  is  visibly 
working  good  as  well  as  evil — as  one  illustration  will  indicate. 
“ The  ratio  of  cost  per  pound  for  labor  of  common  cotton  cloth  for 
the  years  1828  and  1880  was  as  6.77  to  8.31,  wages  for  the  same 
dates  being  as  2.62  to  4.84 ; the  average  consumption  of  cotton, 
which  indicates  the  standard  of  life  as  well  as  any  one  item,  was  per 
capita  of  total  population  for  the  year  1831,  5.90  pounds,  while  in 
1880  the  consumption  rose  to  13.91  pounds,  this  being  exclusive  of 
exports.” 

Given  improvements  in  our  society  which  are  clearly  within  our 
reach,  and  the  most  beneficent  revolution  of  history  would  be  real- 
ized. Society  cannot  allow  of  any  crass,  crude  tinkering  with  its 
complex  organization.  Theorists  must  not  try  experiments  which 
risk  the  life  of  civilization.  We  will  listen  sympathetically  to  your 
beautiful  theories,  my  socialistic  friends,  and  allow  that  if  men  were 
made  over  again  and  all  the  conditions  of  earth  were  changed  the 
millennium  might  be  set  up  to-morrow  ; but  we  must  insist  that, 
while  men  are  as  we  know  them  and  the  conditions  are  what  we  still 


45 


find,  it  will  not  do  to  try  brand-nevr  schemes,  however  well  they 
work — on  paper.  We  will  even  confess  that  your  noble  ideal  of  the 
co-operative  commonwealth  is  the  very  ideal  before  an  earnest  so- 
ciety and  a noble  State,  but  we  will  not  make  the  mistake  of  im- 
agining that  an  ideal  is  a reform  bill,  a measure  of  practical 
economics  and  politics,  to  be  embodied  now  in  legislation.  Society 
must  grow  slowly  toward  its  ideals.  We  can  take  no  leaps  in  the 
dark.  We  must  move  carefully,  one  step  at  a time,  according  as  we 
find  our  footing  secure  among  the  crevasses  over  which  we  are  cut- 
ting our  way. 

In  truth,  however,  as  I have  sought  to  hint  in  the  previous 
sermons,  and  as  will  appear  from  what  I have  just  said,  the  chief 
responsibility  for  the  present  state  of  things  lies  neither  with  capi- 
tal nor  yet  with  labor.  The  economic  mechanism  is  out  of  gear,  in 
our  transition  period.  We  have  outgrown  the  old  methods  of  in- 
dustry and  trade  and  we  have  not  grown  into  an  understanding  of 
the  nejv  methods  and  a mastery  of  them.  Society  itself  is  so  im- 
perfectly developed  that  it  is  seemingly  aggravating  these  economic 
disorders.  The  State  is  as  yet  so  far  from  a knowledge  of  its  own 
true  functions  or  a capacity  to  assume  them  that  it  fails  to  provide 
that  wise  direction  of  the  head  of  the  body  politic  which  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  any  solution  of  our  problem — the  co-ordinating  action 
of  the  brain  of  the  social  organism. 

Society,  therefore  calls  upon  both  capital  and  labor  to  recognize 
the  facts  of  the  situation,  to  cease  from  their  mutual  strife  and  to 
join  hands  in  trying  to  solve  the  great  problem  which  our  age  pre- 
sents to  civilization,  by  a movement  all  along  the  line  of  social  devel- 
opment. That  task  is  a long  and  tedious  one,  calling  for  the  utmost 
patience,  the  most  extreme  care,  in  which  all  the  resources  of  the 
economist,  the  social  scientist  and  the  statesman  will  be  heavily 
taxed.  The  mental  and  moral  conditions  in  which  the  task  is  taken 
up  are  however  of  the  first  importance.  They  constitute  a prime 
factor  in  the  problem  which  we  can  set  at  work  immediately.  Eight 
feeling  is  quite  as  important  here  as  right  thinking.  While  the 
understanding  is  plodding  along  in  its  slow-going  gait  toward  the 
correct  conclusion,  the  feelings  can  leap  to  a point  from  which  men’s 
instinctive  action  will  put  the  whole  problem  in  a vastly  more  favor- 
able light.  The  worst  symptoms  of  the  present  situation  would 
yield  speedily  before  the  action  of  a calm  and  kindly  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  men  who  feel  themselves  brothers  and  so  try  to  do  justly 
by  one  another. 

VI.  To  this  I appeal  to-day  in  the  name  of  civilization's  fairest 
flower,  the  greatest  and  most  beneficent  of  earth’s  republics.  We 
have  outgrown  the  childish  exuberance  of  our  early  Fourth  of  July 
self-glorification,  but  only  to  grow  into  a chastened  sense  of  a most 
real  mission  from  Providence,  calling  to  high  duties  and  imposing 
solemn  responsibilities.  Our  “ manifest  destiny  ” is  verily  that  con- 


46 


cerning  which  our  great  seer  wrote,  in  the  midst  of  the  darkness  of 
our  Civil  War : 

‘ ‘ The  word  of  the  Lord  by  night 
To  the  watching  Pilgrims  came, 

As  they  sat  by  the  seaside, 

And  filled  their  hearts  with  flame. 

“ God  said,  I am  tired  of  kings, 

I suffer  them  no  more  ; 

Up  to  my  ear  the  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor. 

» 

“ Lo  ! I uncover  the  land 
Which  I hid  of  old  time  in  the  West, 

As  the  sculptor  uncovers  the  statue 
When  he  has  wrought  his  best ; 

“ I will  divide  my  goods  ; 

Call  in  the  wretch  and  slave  : 

None  shall  rule  but  the  humble,  * 

And  none  but  toil  shall  have. 

“ I will  have  never  a noble, 

No  lineage  counted  great ; 

Fishers  and  choppers  and  ploughmen 
Shall  constitute  a State. 

“ And  ye  shall  succor  men  ; 

’Tis  nobleness  to  serve  ; 

Help  them  who  cannot  help  again : 

Beware  from  right  to  swerve. 

“ To-day  unbind  the  captive, 

So  only  are  ye  unbound  ; 

Lift  up  a people  from  the  dust, 

Trump  of  their  rescue,  sound  ! ” 

With  high  hearts  did  the  people  of  the  land  answer  that  call 
of  God,  and  now  to-day  the  Nation  renders  God  thanks  that  when 
the  awful  altar  was  reared  there  was  strength  given  for  the  sacrifice 
through  which  the  Republic’s  life  was  saved.  Beautiful  day,  on 
which  memory  weaves  fresh  garlands  for  the  tombs  of  the  Nation’s 
saviors,  and  patriotism  sings  the  glories  of  their  heroic  deeds  ! 
Are  the  children  of  such  fathers  to  prove  themselves  worthy  of  the 
glorious  heritage  which  they  have  bequeathed,  in  title  deeds  wTrit 
with  their  own  heart’s  blood  ? Do  you  dream  that  the  day  of 
heroic  effort  has  gone  by,  that  Duty’s  voice  is  not  again  to  speak 
to  the  Nation  in  thunder  tones,  calling  to  new  tasks  of  self-sac- 
rifice ? Lo  ! even  now  the  storm  clouds  of  a sorer  strife  are  massing 
in  the  horizon,  dark,  heavy,  sulphurous. 

Shall  we  not  then  learn  the  lesson  of  this  beautiful  day,  whereon 
North  and  South,  so  lately  in  deadly  conflict,  go  forth  together  to 
the  graves  of  the  brave  boys  in  blue  and  the  brave  boys  in 
gray  ? Why  should  capital  and  labor  wait  for  the  end  of  a bitter 


47 


strife  to  find  that  after  all  they  have  interests  in  common  ? Why 
reach  peace  only  through  the  miseries  of  an  industrial  war?  Be- 
neath the  shadow  of  our  great  Grant’s  tomb,  laden  with  the  flowers 
of  a grateful  land,  the  Nation  which  he  saved  lays  its  hand  upon 
her  angry  children  whispering : “ Let  us  have  peace.”  * 


* This  lecture  was  given  on  Decoration  Day. 


48 


THE  WAY  OUT. 

The  Alpine  tourist  learns  a secret  of  progress  in  his  mountain 
climbs.  As  he  leaves  the  cold  climate  of  Germany  behind  him  and 
trudges  up  the  old  St.  Gothard  pass,  he  does  not  dream  of  being 
able  to  survey  in  a bird’s-eye  view  all  the  windings  of  his  zigzag 
path,  until  it  lands  him  in  fair  Italy.  He  is  content  to  see  but 
a little  way  before  him,  and  pushes  on  confident  that,  as  he 
rounds  the  corner,  a new  stretch  of  the  upward  path  will  disclose 
itself.  ii.gain  and  again  the  narrow  road  may  seem  to  be  blocked 
in  the  distance  by  some  insurmountable  mountain  wall  #or  to  make 
a plunge  over  some  sheer  precipice,  but  he  plods  on  sure  that, 
when  he  reaches  the  point  where  advance  seem  impossible,  some 
way  out  will  open  for  him.  Thus  he  climbs  until  at  last  the 
summit  is  passed,  the  descent  begins,  and  soon  he  is  amid  the 
smiling  vineyards  and  gray-green  olive  groves  of  the  sunny  South. 

If  any  one  has  expected  to-day  a topographical  survey  of 
the  route  by  which  we  are  to  reach  the  promised  land  of  our 
industrial  civilization,  he  is  doomed  to  disappointment.  I have 
never  been  in  that  fair  land,  save  in  dreams.  Nor  do  I know 
of  any  one  who  has  visited  it  otherwise.  Some  of  those  dreams  are 
indeed  to  me  far  more  than  mere  illusions — they  are  clairvoyant 
visions,  prophetic  glimpses  of  what  the  future  is  to  open ; whose 
main  outlines  I trust,  while  I do  not  attempt  the  folly  of  writing  a 
physical  geography  of  Utopia.  If  Society  is  to  find  its  way  into 
its  Italy,  it  must  climb  an  untrodden  path  over  the  mountains, 
following  on  from  point  to  point  as  seems  feasible,  seeing  ahead 
in  short  vistas,  rounding  corner  after  corner,  finding  the  passage 
apparently  blocked  again  and  again,  and  yet  always  discovering 
some  way  out,  until  at  the  end  there  comes  the  easy  drop  into 
the  fair  land  of  peace  and  plenty.  If  we  wait  until  we  see  the 
whole  pathway  open  before  our  eyes,  we  shall  never  move  forward. 
We  must  make  for  the  points  that  are  in  sight,  and  trust  that 
when  we  shall  have  won  them,  we  shall  see  yet  further  ahead,  and 
thus  grope  our  way  out. 

The  Social  Problem  is  so  vast  and  complex  that  no  one  but 
a charlatan  will  pretend  to  have  found  its  complete  solution.  It  in- 
cludes a host  of  special  problems,  each  of  which  has  to  be  solved 
before  the  grand  equation  can  be  completed.  The  quack  may 
offer  a specific  for  the  disease  of  the  social  organism,  and  insist 
on  heroic  remedies,  but  the  wise  physician  will  be  content  with 
watching  the  course  of  Nature’s  development,  and  with  treating 
the  case  symptomatically  as  the  conditions  change. 

No  one  can  carefully  study  the  situation  without  recognizing 
that  the  trouble  lies  far  below  the  surface  on  which  men  usually 
dwell.  If  that  trouble  were  confined  to  any  one  country  it  might 
be  attributed  to  local  causes.  How  can  it  be  due  to  our  tariff 


49 


alone,  when  one  finds  the  same  state  of  things  in  protective 
countries  and  in  free  trade  lands  ? How  can  it  be  due  to  any  one 
or  more  of  the  other  causes  often  assigned,  wrhen  it  is  found  in 
nations  where  those  causes  do  not  exist  ? The  present  depression 
prevails  in  all  the  industrial  countries  of  the  Western  world. 
Plainly,  certain  constant  factors  are  working  to  produce  this 
uniform  result  in  different  lands,  under  different  political,  social 
and  economic  conditions. 

While  there  would  be  no  real  overpopulation  were  our  systems 
of  land  tenure  wisely  ordered,  there  is  a relative  overpopulation 
in  most  countries — a pressure  upon  the  resources  of  the  earth  as 
now  developed,  and  this  fact  enters  largely  into  the  problem. 

The  marvelously  rapid  introduction  of  power-machinery  has 
very  much  to  do  with  the  situation.  This  is  multiplying  the  press- 
ure of  population  enormously,  in  the  manufacturing  centres,  by  its 
immense  displacement  of  human  labor  It  has  created  what  we  or- 
dinarily speak  of  as  an  overproduction— meaning  by  that  simply 
an  overproduction  relatively  to  the  power  of  the  people  at  large 
to  consume.  It  has  thus  glutted  the  market  everywhere,  causing 
stagnation  in  industry  and  trade.  This  enormous  productive  power 
has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  individuals,  before  society  has  devel- 
oped any  method  of  regulating  its  activity  in  the  interests  of  the 
people.  The  socialist  charge  of  “ planless  production”  is  valid. 
Production  has  been  rushing  ahead  under  the  heedless  greed  of  in- 
dividuals, without  their  stopping  to  consider  the  wants  of  society, 
its  power  of  consuming.  Herein,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  factors  in  our  present  problem.  This  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  the  countries  which  have  not  developed  this 
mechanical  power  are  relatively  free  from  the  troubles  of  the 
industrial  nations. 

The  problem  is  further  complicated  by  the  breaking  down  of 
the  old-time  barriers  between  different  nations.  There  is  now 
but  one  market,  and  that  is  twenty-four  thousand  miles  long.  Each 
people  is  competing  with  every  other  people.  Wages  therefore 
tend,  except  as  counter-currents  act  upon  the  labor  market,  toward 
the  lowest  level.  A process  of  equalization  is  going  on  among  all 
nations.  If  the  higher  peoples  cannot  level  up  the  lower  peoples, 
they  themselves  will  be  levelled  down  to  the  conditions  of  the 
cheapest  labor. 

Back  of  all  other  factors  is  the  increasing  taxation  which 
rent  imposes  in  industrial  and  trade  centres.  Capital  and  labor 
are  dependent  upon  land.  The  systems  of  land  tenure  in  the 
Western  world  exaggerate  this  dependence.  The  profits  of  capital 
and  the  wages  of  labor  are  thus  being  increasingly  depleted  to 
pay  the  tribute  of  rent. 

These  are  but  a f^v  of  the  economic  aspects  of  the  problem, 
in  its  large  and  general  form.  Back  of  all  the  economic  factors  are 


50 


other  and  yet  larger  factors.  Many  social  forces  are  working  in  the 
problem,  complicating  the  purely  economic  disorders.  The  prob- 
lems of  vice  and  crime  open  side  aspects  of  this  gigantic  question, 
full  of  perplexities.  Under  the  law  of  heredity,  physical,  mental  and 
moral  defects  are  dowering  each  generation  with  a load  that  sinks 
multitudes  into  poverty.  The  science  of  government  is  as  yet  so 
imperfect  that  the  functions  of  the  State — the  most  important  fac- 
tor in  the  problem — are  very  inadequately  discharged.  Our  system 
of  education,  our  burdensome  taxation,  our  political  corruption, 
our  municipal  mismanagement — -these  and  a host  of  other  defects  in 
government  tell  mightily  upon  the  problem. 

How  difficult  then  is  that  problem ! How  delicate  the  task  of 
solving  it  ! What  patience  the  attempt  demands ! That  it  is  solv- 
able is  unquestionable  to  him  who  believes  in  progress.  The  human 
mind  is  turning  its  energies  upon  it  and  studying  it  from  a hundred 
points  of  view.  Already,  light  is  breaking  forth  from  the  darkness, 
and  gleams  of  the  coming  day  are  dawning.  Time  alone  is  requisite 
to  bring  that  consensus  of  economic  judgment  in  which  will  be  re- 
vealed to  man  the  laws  governing  the  situation — by  laying  hold  of 
which  he  shall  be  able  to  extricate  himself  from  the  present 
trouble. 

Meanwhile  there  is  much  that  can, be  done  to  alleviate*  the  sit- 
uation, to  facilitate  the  social  evolution,  to  work  out  details  of  the 
problem  and  thus  prepare  for  its  general  solution.  In  our  coun- 
try, we  are  so  favored  that  we  ought  not  to  feel  the  more  severe 
pressure  of  the  problem.  We  ought  to  be  able  to  save  ourselves 
from  going  through  the  whole  course  of  bitter  experience  under 
which  the  old  world  is  groaning.  There  are  some  points  beyond 
us  toward  which  we  ought  to  press,  trusting  that  when  we  have 
won  them  the  way  out  will  open  yet  further. 

I.  Our  labor  organizations  have  much  to  do  toward  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem.  Organization  is  an  essential  condition  of  self- 
help  on  the  part  of  labor.  Individually,  the  workingman  is 
powerless.  Associated,  he  will  have  power  to  gain  his  just  rights. 
I have  sufficiently  indicated  what  seem  to  me  the  great  dangers  be- 
fore these  organizations — let  it  suffice  now  that  I suggest  what 
appears  to  me  to  be  their  true  line  of  action. 

Education  is  the  prime  need  of  labor.  The  associations  which 
these  organizations  bring,  the  discussions  they  open,  the  reading 
and  study  they  stimulate,  all  foster  that  education. 

These  associations  can  become  mighty  forces  in  the  war  against 
one  of  the  worst  foes  of  the  average  laborer — Intemperance.  They 
can  boycott  rum. 

They  form  the  natural  nuclei  for  the  economic  combinations  of 
which  labor  stands  in  such  m ed  today.  They  can  be  made  vast 
mutual  assurance  leagues.  They  can  develop,  in  various  forms,  the 
principle  of  co-operation ; leading  out  into  lolh  and  building  socie- 


51 


ties  through  which  workingmen  may  become  the  owners  of  their 
homes,  co-operative  stores  through  which  they  can  cheapen  the  nec- 
essaries of  life  and  secure  the  best  quality  in  them,  and  ultimately 
co-operative  productive  associations  through  which  their  savings 
can  be  capitalized  and  labor  become  to  some  extent  its  own  employ- 
er. I have  no  illusions  about  co-operation.  I recognize  clearly  its 
limitations.  But  I see  in  it  certain  very  substantial  advantages 
which  labor  needs,  to  strengthen  itself  for  its  more  arduous  tasks. 
My  chief  interest,  however,  in  co-operation  centres  in  the  education 
that  it  carries  on ; its  general  quickening  of  the  intelligence  and  its 
practical  training  in  business — an  indispensable  condition  for  the 
coming  higher  forms  of  industry,  in  which  labor  and  capital  are  to 
blend. 

These  organizations  secure  the  means  for  carrying  on  that  pa- 
tient agitation  out  of  which  is  to  come  the  gradual  and  peaceful 
shortening  of  the  hours  of  toil — one  of  the  most  important  condi- 
tions for  the  economic  prosperity  of  labor  and  for  its  intellectual 
advancement. 

Our  labor  organizations  provide  the  instrumentalities  through 
which  the  power  of  the  ballot  is  to  be  utilized.  Political  action  must 
be  the  ultimate  hope  of  labor  in  a republic — not  the  formation  of  a 
class-party  for  national  campaigns,  but  the  judicious  and  timely 
exercise  of  pressure  on  behalf  of  particular  legislation.  When  our 
trades-unions  and  Knights  of  Labor  are  thoroughly  organized,  they 
can  control  legislation,  in  so  far  as  such  legislation  is  necessary  and 
practicable ; and  thus  secure  the  best  possible  conditions  for  the 
solution  of  the  problem. 

II.  Our  great  manufacturing  and  trade  and  commercial  associa- 
tions have  somewhat  to  do  toward  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
They  can  exert  a very  positive  influence  toward  this  end,  without 
repeating  the  mistakes  of  the  guilds  of  olden  times.  Very  much  that 
needs  to  be  done  for  the  better  regulation  of  the  business  world 
can  be  far  better  done  by  these  associations  than  by  the  clumsy 
hand  of  legislation. 

Some  control  of  speculation  is  imperatively  needed.  It  seems 
impossible  as  yet,  to  frame  laws  which  will  reach  the  evil  without 
interfering  with  the  freedom  of  trade.  But  were  our  great  business 
associations  bent  on  putting  a stop  to  the  gambling  of  our  Ex 
# changes,  they  could  soon  do  $o,  by  the  force  of  public  opinion  gen- 
erated in  these  bodies. 

Some  regulation  of  our  present  helter-skelter  production,  in 
which  every  man  is  free  to  push  manufacturing  ahead  to  the  full  ex- 
tent of  his  power  without  thought  or  care  for  .the  general  needs  of 
the  community,  is  urgently  demanded.  Until  there  is  found  some 
better  regulation  of  our  industrial  mechanism  than  the  alternate 
fever  and  chill  of  our  periods  of  prosperity  and  depression,  we  must 
expect  our  social  problem  to  go  unsolved.  We  dare  not  think  of  the 


52 


State’s  undertaking  suck  a delicate  task,  but  surely  we  might  rea- 
sonably look  to  these  modern  guilds  for  some  honest  effort  to  im- 
prove upon  our  present  “ planless  production.” 

These  associations  can  do  much  toward  the  development  of  a 
higher  relationship  between  capital  and  labor.  They  can  stimulate 
the  study  of  the  various  experiments  that  have  been  made  in  differ- 
ent countries  with  reference  to  a more  harmonious  alliance  between 
employer  and  employee.  They  can  thus  foster  the  growth  of  profit- 
sharing  and  possibly  of  wiser  forms  of  a true  industrial  partnership. 
And  they  can  at  once  make  for  peace  by  introducing  boards  of 
arbitration. 

III.  Society  at  large  has  something  to  do  toward  the  solving  of 
the  problem. 

The  economic  evils  of  luxury  have  doubtless  been  greatly  exag- 
gerated, yet  those  evils,  as  far  as  they  go,  are  actual.  Luxury  is,  to 
a considerable  extent,  an  economic  waste.  It  employs  labor  truly, 
but  largely  for  non-productive  pursuits,"  in  occupations  which  de- 
moralize those  engaged  in  them.  But  the  true  evil  of  luxury  lies  in 
its  immoral  influences.  It  sets  false  standards  of  life.  It  multi- 
plies and  materializes  wants,  instead  of  simplifying  and  ennobling 
wants.  It  goads  men  of  business  to  a reckless  pursuit  of  riches. 
It  fires  the  fever  of  speculation.  It  turns  the  noble  aspirations  of 
poverty  into  ignoble  ambitions.  The  poor  hunger  not  after  culti- 
vated minds,  but  after  silk  dresses  and  jewelry,  even  though  it  be 
pinchbeck.  It  feeds  the  jealousy  and  envy  of  the  less  fortunate 
of  earth,  as  they  look  up  to  the  wealth  that  flaunts  itself  upon  our 
avenues  in  lavish  ostentation. 

Is  it  not  time  to  call  a halt  in  our  selfish  indulgence  of  lux- 
urious tastes  ? Society  can  do  much  toward  easing  the  social  prob- 
lem, by  cultivating  that  “ plain  living  and  high  thinking  ” which  is 
the  true  glory  of  a civilization.  Here  is  somewhat  for  womanhood 
to  do  in  the  great  task  of  our  time. 

Society’s  demand  for  cheapness  is  intensifying  the  strain  of  the 
business  world.  We  grow  indignant  over  the  inhumanity  of  employ- 
ers who,  to  make  large  profits,  cut  down  the  wages  of  their  hands 
to  starvation  rates.  There  is  need  of  a good  deal  of  wholesome  in- 
dignation in  this  direction.  But  let  us  not  pour  it  forth  too  gen- 
erously upon  others,  when  each  of  us  perhaps  may  need  to  heap 
a little  upon  ourselves.  Employers  are  driven  into  a cut-throat 
competition  to  undersell  one  another,  because  the  purchasing  public 
demands  above  everything  else  cheapness,  and  never  troubles  itself 
about  the  real  cost  of  goods. 

True,  it  must  be  difficult  for  us,  who  buy,  to  solve  this  problem 
before  our  own  consciences,  until  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  our 
stores  will  take  pride  in  marking  upon  their  goods  the  actual  cost 
thereof.  It  would  perhaps  seem  like  a strip  of  the  millennium  to 
find  any  store  honestly  letting  the  public  know  the  wages  paid  for 


53 


labor  on  its  goods — but  I am  persuaded  that  whoever  leads  in  such 
a new  departure  will  find  an  immense  constituency  waiting  to  sup- 
port him.  Meanwhile  I pray  you,  good  women,  who  take  such 
delight  in  shopping,  remember  the  moral  responsibility  which  may 
be  involved  in  your  “ splendid  bargains.”  Go  home  and  read  again 
the  “ Song  of  the  Shirt,”  and  muse  over  it  a little. 

IV.  The  Church  has  a part  to  play  in  working  out  this  prob- 
lem. The  solution  lies  largely  in  the  action  of  moral  forces.  No 
legislation  can  determine  what  constitutes  a just  distribution  of  the 
rewards  of  industry  between  profits  and  wages.  It  cannot  be  stated 
in  the  hard  and  fast  terms  of  political  economy.  Let  the  desire  to 
“ do  justly  ” really  work  in  the  consciences  of  employers,  and  some 
way  will  be  found  to  reach  a rude  equation  of  equity.  It  is  the 
Church’s  business  not  merely  to  preach,  as  of  old,  the  duty  of  gen- 
erosity in  the  use  of  wealth,  but  the  duty  of  justice  in  the  accumu- 
lation of  wealth.  In  one  of  our  great  cities  there  has  lately  been  a 
bitter  strike  against  a great  employer,  some  of  whose  hands  were  re- 
ceiving four  dollars  a week,  while  he  had  but  recently  given  $50,000 
toward  a church.  Let  the  Church  say  to  Capital : “ Keep  back  your 
gifts  and  pay  your  debt  of  justice  to  your  fellow  partner,  Labor.” 

V.  The  State  has  much  to  do  in  pushing  forward  the  prac- 
tical solution  of  the  problem.  We  need  not  here  enter  into  any 
elaborate  discussion  of  the  functions  of  the  State.  Experience 
teaches  more  than  books.  Facts  are  more  solid  than  theories. 
Our  older  school  of  political  Economy  told  us  that  the  State 
could  do  nothing  in  this  problem  except  to  muddle  it.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  legislation  in  the  interests  of  labor  has 
been  forced  upon  the  English  Parliament,  despite  of  the  theo- 
rists, and  that  legislation  has  proven  a most  substantial  aid  in 
the  elevation  of  English  workingmen.  As  a matter  of  fact,  the 
State  is  being  steadily  pushed,  by  the  unconscious  action  of  the 
social  organism,  into  the  development  of  new  functions,  and 
these  are  thus  far  working  well. 

In  truth  it  is  only  in  political  economy  that  a headless  organism 
is  counted  a natural  condition  of  life.  Everywhere  else,  a living 
body  develops  a head,  with  brain-power  capable  of  co-ordinating 
the  complex  activities  of  the  organism. 

Certainly  such  action  of  the  State  may  be  easily  pushed  too 
far.  Individual  initiative  may  be  repressed  by  State  direction, 
as  in  I 'ranee.  Herbert  Spencer’s  nightmare- dream  of  “ the  coming 
slavery  ” is  a possibility,  against  wThich  we  need  to  guard  ourselves. 
We  shall  have  guarded  ourselves  effectively  against  this  danger  if 
we  clearly  recognize  it,  and,  with  eyes  wide  open,  appeal  to  the 
State  for  nothing  that  can  be  effectively  done  without  its  direct 
action.  We  must  not  ask  of  the  State  to  direct  the  local  functions 
of  the  body  but  to  see  that  the  general  conditions  of  the  organism 
are  healthful,  that  no  abnormal  disorders  check  the  natural  auto- 


54 


% 


matic  action  of  the  social  organs,  and  that,  if  such  disorders 
arise,  wise  remedial  measures  shall  be  used. 

(1.)  As  the  first  step  in  this  direction  we  have  need  to  perfect 
our  political  mad  liner  y — by  which  of  course  I do  not  mean  per- 
fecting the  political  machine.  It  goes  without  saying  that  our 
political  mechanism  is  to-day  very  defective ; that  it  needs  to  be 
developed  much  more  highly  to  realize  the  benefit  of  free  institu- 
tions. A true  republic  would  provide  the  political  conditions  for 
the  solving  of.  our  economic  problem,  in  so  far  as  the  State  is  a 
factor  therein.  We  need  to  reform  and  develop  our  municipal. 
State  and  National  administration,  to  the  end  that  there  shall  be 
a government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people. 
There  is  room  here  for  the  co-operation  of  every  citizen. 

Capital  and  labor  alike  need  to  lend  a hand  vigorously  in  the 
purification  of  our  public  life,  in  the  perfection  of  our  political 
mechanism.  Labor  seems  to  me  strangely  blind  to  its  opportu- 
nities in  this  direction.  Were  it  roused  to  the  realization  of  the 
evils  of  our  present  municipal  administration,  we  might  have  a 
government  of  New  York  in  which,  instead  of  the  burdensome  tax- 
ation now  imposed  upon  our  community,  there  would  be  the 
common  sense,  business-like  administration  of  affairs  which  charac- 
terizes many  a German  city.  Cannot  labor  realize  that  the  socialist 
dream  requires,  as  the  prime  condition  for  the  vast  responsibilities 
which  the  State  is  to  assume,  a genuine  civil  service  reform — a 
government  carried  on  as  a great  business  ? 

(2.)  The  State  can  aid  in  the  working  out  of  this  problem  by 
developing  her  system  of  education.  Capital  understands  well 
enough  how  profits  are  affected  by  the  intelligence  of  working- 
men, and  labor  understands  equally  well  how  wages  are  affected 
by  its  education.  You  can  measure  the  relative  wages  of  the  differ- 
ent States  of  our  Union  by  their  percentage  of  illiteracy.  It  is  of 
prime  moment  for  both  capital  and  labor  that  our  people  should 
be  as  well  educated  as  possible. 

The  State  must  therefore  make  education  compulsory,  as  in  law 
so  in  fact.  The  employment  of  children  in  our  factories — for  which 
poor  parents  are  responsible  as  well  as  rich  employers — should  be 
effectively  prohibited,  in  so  far  as  such  employment  interferes  with 
that  prime  necessity  of  our  people,  the  education  of  the  on-coming 
generations. 

Our  education  must  be  made  to  bear  more  directly  upon  the 
pressing  industrial  problem.  At  present  our  common  schools  do 
not  attempt  to  provide  for  the  most  common  necessities  of  the 
common  people.  We  teach  the  children  of  the  people  everything 
except  the  prime  need — the  knowledge  which  maintains  life,  the 
skill  which  elevates  life.  If  there  is  any  justification  for  the 
State’s  taxing  A to  provide  for  the  education  of  B’s  children,  that 
justification  is  primarily  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  such  education 


55 


is  to  make  ont  of  those  children  £hat  which  they  otherwise  probably 
would  not  become,  self-supporting  citizens,  relieving  A’s  sons  from 
the  burden  of  taxation  for  the  support  of  B’s  sons  as  paupers  or 
criminals.  Clearly  our  common  schools  can  lay  the  foundations  for 
industrial  education  ; adding  to  their  present  instruction  in  drawing- 
such  training  in  the  various  handicrafts — modeling,  working  in 
wood,  etc. — as  will  develop  interest  in  those  pursuits  and  capacity 
for  them.  Thus,  without  making  carpenters  or  machinists,  the 
public  school  can  make  the  material  for  any  handicraftsmen. 

I see  no  reason,  despite  of  all  that  has  been  said  to  the  con- 
trary, why  the  State  should  not  provide  training  schools  for  special 
industries ; since  in  the  decay  of  the  old  apprenticeship  system 
there  is  at  present  little  provision  for  the  development  of  skilled 
workmen.  Certainly,  however,  it  can  foster  the  growth  of  artistic 
industries,  as  many  European  countries  are  doing,  with  remarkable 
success. 

(3.)  The  State  can  aid  in  the  education  of  thrift — the  lack  of 
which  we  have  seen  is  lowering  the  profits  of  capital  and  diminishing 
the  resources  of  labor.  If  political  economy  is  right,  as  it  un- 
doubtedly is,  in  teaching  that  thrift  is  the  basic  virtue  of  an  indus- 
trial civilization,  then  the  State  is  wrong  in  not  making  sure  of 
the  culture  of  this  fundamental  virtue  of  our  society.  The  child’s 
attention  should  be  drawn  to  the  duty  of  practicing  self  denial  for 
the  future.  Habits  of  saving  should  be  formed,  and  boys  and  girls 
led  to  realize  the  rewards  of  abstinence.  The  more  that  the  homes 
of  our  poor  fail  to  inculcate  this  virtue,  the  more  should  the  State 
see  that  her  common  schools  train  it.  It  is  not  needful  that  there 
should  be  long  lessons  upon  thrift  or  text -books  about  the  duty 
of  saving.  Let  our  public  schools  learn  a lesson  from  many  of  our 
industrial  schools;  wherein,  by  the  simplest  of  machinery,  children 
are  being  trained  in  this  important  habit.  What  a boon  it  would 
be  to  the  country  at  large  if  our  public  schools  secured  for  the 
immense  number  of  children  gathered  within  them  such  an  annual 
saving  as  our  own  industrial  school  has  done  for  its  poor  children — 
a saving  equivalent  to  a thousand  dollars  a year  ! In  France,  since 
1874,  over  23,00f)  school  savings-banks  have  been  opened,  with 
nearly  500,000  depositors,  and  with  deposits  amounting  to 
$2,225,000. 

The  State  can  carry  on  this  training  in  thrift  among  its  adult 
citizens.  There  is  a wide-spread  suspicion  among  the  poor  of  our 
savings-banks,  an  unjustifiable  suspicion  surely,  but  one  that  is 
natural,  in  view  of  the  many  and  shameful  failures  that  have  taken 
place  among  those  institutions.  Each  broken  savings-bank  breaks 
up  habits  of  saving  among  a host  of  people.  Through  a large 
portion  of  the  South  and  West,  there  are  no  facilities  for  laying- 
up  small  savings.  The  post-office  stands  everywhere,  a branch  of 
the  soundest  financial  institution  in  the  land.  No  greater  incentive 


56 


to  thrift  could  be  devised  at  present  than  the  introduction  through 
our  land  of  the  postal  savings  system.  Let  the  State  see  that 
her  duty  is  discharged  in  this  respect.  Every  depositor  in  the 
National  Savings-Bank  will  become  a shareholder  in  the  Government, 
and  will  be  made  thereby  a conservative  member  of  society.  His 
interests  will  be  opposed  to  everything  that  imperils  the  security 
of  the  country. 

(4.)  The  State  can  reform  her  system  of  taxation,  so  as  to 
lighten  the  burdens  which  it  now  imposes  upon  industry  and  to 
undo  the  artificial  restrictions  with  which  it  cramps  trade.  This 
subject  is  so  large  and  complicated  that  I shall  do  no  more  than 
refer  to  it,  though  indeed  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  factors  in 
the  problem.  Many  of  the  well  admitted  principles  of  taxation  are 
systematically  ignored  in  our  methods,  which  are  often  rather 
barbaric  than  civilized.  One  need  be  no  free  trader  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  our  system  of  protection  is  not  a science  but  a 
grab-game,  in  which  “ infant  industries  ” stand  as  much  chance  of 
being  helped  as  infants  would  stand  a chance  of  getting  at  a table 
amid  a rush  of  hungry  giants.  Luxuries  should  bear  the  chief 
burden  of  taxation,  rather  than  the  common  necessities  from 
which  we  raise  the  greater  part  of  our  revenues.  A direct  taxation 
would  disclose  the  fact  of  the  oppressive  tolls  which  we  now  lay 
on  the  necessities  of  the  poor,  thus  depressing  the  consuming 
power  of  the  masses  of  the  people  ; .but  we  veil  this  folly  under 
our  indirect  taxation  and  suffer  blindly.  In  many  ways  a wise  sys- 
tem of  taxation  could  favor  a better  distribution  of  wealth  while 
increasing  production. 

(5.)  The  State  can  see  to  it  that  whatever  legislation  she  orders 
shall  be  impartial.  Whenever  labor  asks  aid  of  the  Government 
a great  cry  goes  up  against  interfering  with,  natural  laws,  from 
the  parties  which  have  fattened  on  special  legislation.  There  can 
be  no  question  whatever  about  the  fact  that,  alike  in  our  National 
and  State  legislation,  capital  has  been  aided  enormously  while  labor 
has  had  the  crumbs  which  fell  from  the  table.  Compare  the  ex- 
tent of  our  labor  legislation  with  the  mass  of  spatial  legislation  in 
the  interests  of  private  parties — corporations,  companies  and  in- 
dividuals— and  the  conclusion  will  be  irresistible.  Every  facility 
has  been  provided  for  the  organization  of  capital,  and  scarcely 
anything  has  been  done  to  facilitate  the  organization  of  labor. 
Every  safeguard  has  been  thrown  round  the  financial  operations 
of  wealth,  and  scarcely  a provision  exists  to-day  in  this  State  for 
securing  the  modest  monetary  transactions  of  poverty  with  its 
banker — the  pawnbroker.  Partial  legislation  is  as  unwise  as  it  is 
unjust.  The  interests  of  individual  capitalists  may  be  fostered  by 
the  depression  of  labor,  but  the  interests  of  capital  at  large  can 
only  be  fostered  by  the  elevation  of  labor.  The  mass  of  men  are 
the  great  consumers  of  the  nation.  Let  their  power  of  con- 


57 


sumption  be  depressed  by  legislation  and  capital’s  power  of  pro- 
duction is  restrained. 

(6.)  The  State  can  control  transportation  in  the  interests  of 
the  people  at  large.  Exchange  is  an  essential  part  of  production. 
Each  should  be  thoroughly  free,  with  no  artificial  restraints  im- 
posed upon  it  in  the  interests  of  the  few.  Modern  transportation, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  tends  to  become  a monopoly.  It 
should  therefore  be  under  the  direct  superintendence  of  the 
State.  The  power  given  to  a few  of  controlling  our  great  lines  of 
transportation  is  too  gigantic  to  be  left  in  the  hands  of  individuals. 
I am  aware  of  what  Mr.  Atkinson  shows  as  to  the  surprising 
reduction  of  through  rates  upon  our  great  lines.  There  is,  how- 
ever, another  side  to  the  question.  A few  years  since,  a com- 
mittee of  our  State  Legislature  found  that  one,  at  least,  of  the 
great  lines  leading  into  our  city  was  charging  two  or  three  times 
as  much  as  the  roads  into  Boston  for  the  freight  of  a prime  article 
of  food,  milk ; and,  as  a result  of  that  investigation,  there  was  a 
large  drop  in  the  rates.  Another  committee  of  our  own  Legislature 
stated  distinctly  that  our  railroads  imposed  an  annual  taxation  on 
the  country  which  no  government  would  dare  to  lay.  In  many 
wrays  the  natural,  free  action  of  exchange  is  cramped  by  the  methods 
of  management  used  by  some  of  these  great  lines  of  transportation. 
Whatever  excesses  the  Granger  movement  developed,  it  none  the 
less  grew  out  of  a real  evil.  The  State  should  follow  the  example 
set  by  several  countries  of  the  old  world,  and  either  own  our  rail- 
roads or  superintend  their  direction  in  the  interests  of  the  com- 
monwealth. 

(7.)  The  State  should  regulate  our  foreign  immigration.  Hith- 
erto it  has  been  absolutely  free,  and  to  our  shores  have  turned  the 
needy  and  discontented  of  every  nation  of  Europe.  It  has  been  our 
glory  that  we  had  opened  a place  of  refuge  for  the  weary  of  the 
earth.  Perhaps  we  have  been  a little  too  generous  in  our  hospit- 
ality. Certainly  immigration  has  been  pouring  in  faster  than  our 
power  to  assimilate  it.  We  have  received  over  4,000,000  immi- 
grants in  the  last  decade.  We  have  needed  most  of  this  immigra- 
tion, and,  if  we  could  have  distributed  it  wisely,  it  might  have 
been  an  unmingied  benefit.  It  has,  however,  tended  largely  toward 
our  great  manufacturing  centres,  which  it  thus  still  further  clogged 
with  surplus  labor,  depressing  wages,  lowering  the  power  of  de- 
mand on  which  production  depends,  and  thus  leading  to  the  shrink- 
age of  profits. 

Plainly,  we  need  either  to  restrict  our  immigration  or  to  organ- 
ize its  distribution  in  the  interests  of  the  nation.  If  we  throw  open 
our  doors  to  the  world,  we  have  the  right  to  assign  places  to  our 
guests.  We  have  certainly  also  the  right’  to  direct  our  invitations. 
At  present  we  fulfill  the  gospel  command,  and  go  out  into  the 
highways  and  hedges  and  compel  the  lame  and  the  blind  to  come 


58 


in  to  the  feast  which  we  spread.  We  have  made  onr  land  the 
dumping  ground  of  the  refuse  of  earth.  Europe  has  found  our 
country  a free  almshouse  for  her  paupers  and  a Botany  Bay  for 
her  criminals,  costing  her  nothing.  She  has  systematically  shipped 
to  us  the  people  whom  she  was  glad  to  get  rid  of.  This  country 
is  somewhat  large,  but  there  is  not  room  enough  in  it  for  Spiers 
and  Most.  There  ought  to  be  a little  more  difficulty  in  importing 
such  precious  specimens  of  humanity.  We  do  not  want  free  trade 
in  moral  monsters. 

There  should  be,  in  some  form,  stringent  legislation  as  to  the 
financial  ability  and  general  character  of  those  whom  we  ask  to 
become  citizens  of  our  great  republic,  if  we  desire  that  republic  to 
live.  Already  nearly  33  per  cent,  of  our  factory  population  are  of 
foreign  birth — unaccustomed  therefore  to  our  institutions,  un- 
trained in  the  moral  restraints  which  freedom  imposes,  creating  the 
raw  material  for  corruption  in  politics  and  for  violence  in  strikes. 
The  balance  of  power  in  Massachusetts  is  now  held  by  the  man- 
ufacturing towns  and  cities,  into  which  140,000  Canadian  French- 
men have  been  imported  in  recent  years.  Among  15,000  of  these 
people  in  one  town,  not  more  than  one-third  can  read  in  any 
language. 

Without  question,  it  is  high  time  that  the  law  passed  two  years 
ago  by  Congress,  prohibiting  the  importation  of  cheap  foreign 
labor  under  contract,  should  be  rigorously  enforced.  This  is  a 
species  of  immigration  which  allows  of  no  justification.  It  is  a 
monstrous  wrong  that  unscrupulous  capital  should  be  allowed  to 
rake  the  cheapest  labor  markets  of  the  old  world  for  the  material 
with  which  to  fight  our  American  workingmen.  Wages  are  thus 
reduced,  hosts  of  men  are  thrown  into  idleness,  the  standards  of 
life  are  lowered,  bitter  feelings  are  aroused,  and  an  inflammable  con- 
dition gendered,  out  of  which  may  readily  come  worse  scenes  than 
those  of  the  Hocking  valley. 

Mr.  Wright,  in  the  admirable  report  of  the  National  Bureau 
of  Labor,  thinks  that  there  is  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  capital 
to  violate  this  law.  Some  of  our  labor  papers  give  another  story. 
There  exists  now  1 believe,  in  this  city,  a company  incorporated  to 
carry  on  the  business  of  importing  low-priced  labor.  Only  this 
week  one  of  our  papers  stated  that  2,000  cheap  Italian  laborers  were 
on  the  way  to  our  shores,  under  contract  for  a railroad  enterprise. 
If  such  facts  exist,  there  is  need  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
National  law.  It  will  prove  here,  as  everywhere  else,  that  the 
interests  of  labor  are  the  interests  of  capital — not  of  the  individual 
capitalists,  who  may  have  to  pay  the  higher  wages,  but  of  capital 
at  large,  for  whose  productive  power  there  will  be  made  a greater 
demand,  as  labor  is  higher  paid. 

(8.)  The  State  may  well  foster  the  colonization  of  the  West 
and  South,  as  a means  of  relieving  the  overcrowded  labor  market 


59 


of  the  East.  Mr.  Wright  estimates  that  about  a year  ago  there 
were  a million  of  people  without  employment  in  our  country,  and 
he  calculates  the  loss  to  trade  thus  caused  at  about  $300,000,000 
for  the  year.  Fancy  $300,000,000  worth  of  demand  withdrawn 
from  our  markets  ! Is  not  this  one  item  alone  enough  to  create 
our  present  depression  ? Set  this  million  of  idle  people  at  work, 
and  every  one  of  them  would  begin  to  buy,  and  through  a 
thousand  stores  an  increased  demand  would  make  itself  felt,  which, 
inspiring  confidence,  would  start  up  again  our  industrial  mech- 
anism, now  paralyzed  largely  from  the  mental  epidemic  of 
distrust  under  which  we  are  suffering.  The  biggest  boom  our 
country  has  known  would  begin  to-day,  if  this  million  of  idle  peo- 
ple were  put  at  work. 

It  would  seem  to  any  reasonable  man  one  of  the  most  natural 
functions  of  a true  State  to  aid  in  tiding  over  such  periods  of  de- 
pression, by  finding  work  for  the  unemployed.  This  task,  how- 
ever, is  beset  with  so  many  difficulties  that  it  is  no  wonder  that 
our  Government  shrinks  from  it.  There  is  one  way  alone,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  in  which  the  difficulty  might  be  met,  without  in- 
curring greater  dangers  than  those  escaped.  The  great  nations  of 
the  old  world  have  always  relieved  the  pressure  of  overpopulation 
by  systematic  colonization.  Most  of  our  idle  people  in  the  East 
are  unprepared  for  life  upon  the  land.  To  ensure  their  self-  support 
they  need  to  be  led  and  directed  in  colonization.  This  is  too 
large  a task  for  private  philanthropy.  It  might  perhaps  be  organ- 
ized by  the  State. 

If  it  were  found  possible  to  stimulate  colonisation  by  any  sys- 
tem of  loans,  secured  by  the  land  and  its  improvements,  this 
would  be  a clear  duty  for  the  State.  When  there  is  local  inflam- 
mation in  any  part  of  my  body  my  head  suggests  at  once  the 
application  of  measures  which  will  tend  to  restore  the  normal  cir- 
culation. Let  the  head  of  the  body  social  do  likewise.  Certainly, 
the  State  should  facilitate  individual  immigration  from  our;  over- 
crowded centres,  in  every  practicable  way. 

Because  of  this  duty  of  furthering  a better  distribution  of  the 
population,  the  State  should  have  held  as  a sacred  trust  our  mag- 
nificent domain  of  public  lands  which  it  has  lavished  so  recklessly 
upon  speculative  railroads.  Our  National  Bureau  of  Labor  de- 
clares that  two  thirds  of  odr  public  lands  have  been  already  deeded 
away  and  that  the  greater  portion  of  the  remaining  third  is  unavail- 
able for  cultivation  at  present.  A few  years  ago,  when  interested 
with  some  of  you  in  a private  enterprise  on  behalf  of  colonization, 
I wakened  with  a start  to  realize  that  our  limit  of  available  free  land 
was  already  reached.  The  shadows  of  the  old-world  problem  are 
thus  stealing  rapidly  upon  us.  It  is  not  yet  too  late  to  retrieve 
our  mistake,  in  part  at  least.  It  is  estimated  that  100,000,000  acres 
are  reclaimable  to-day  by  our  National  Government,  from  railroad 


6d 

companies  which  have  failed  to  bomply  with  the  conditions  on 
which  their  grants  were  made.  Here  is  a clear  case  for  legislation. 

(9.)  The  State  should  hold  all  mineral  resources  hereafter 
opened  as  the  property  of  the  people  at  large. 

If  it  were  not  for  our  conventional  customs,  how  monstrous 
would  seem  the  notion  that  the  natural  resources  of  the  earth  could 
be  monopolized  by  individuals.  In  the  bosom  of  the  earth  are 
stored  treasures  beyond  the  dream  of  man.  No  human  toil  has 
wrought  that  wealth.  It  lies  there  ready-made  for  man,  waiting 
only  to  be  lifted  to  the  surface  and  disengaged  from  its  alloy.  The 
Creator  has  stored  this  treasure-house  with  his  gifts  for  his  chil- 
dren. Some  of  these  treasures  are  absolute  necessities  for  their 
life.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  simplest  and  clearest  ethical  principle 
that  such  a provision  by  the  Most  High  for  man’s  needs  should  be 
the  common  possession  of  the  household  of  the.  earth. 

Whereas,  we  have  let  it  come  to  pass  that  chance  or  superior 
knowledge  may  place  in  the  hands  of  a few  individuals  the  control 
of  these  subterranean  treasures.  A man  may  buy  a few  acres  of  the 
surface  ,of  the  earth,  and,  lighting  upon  a rich  vein  of  mineral, 
may  lay  unchallenged  claim  to  whatever  vast  resources  are  thus 
opened  by  accident  to  him.  Bound  him  myriads  of  people  may 
stand  shivering  in  the  cold  of  winter,  and  he  has  the  right  to  tax 
them  at  his  pleasure  for  the  coal  with  which  they  shall  keep  life  in 
their  bodies.  A few  years  ago,  in  our  city,  a coal  magnate  was 
asked  what  the  price  of  coal  was  to  be  for  the  coming  winter.  He 
replied  with  a smile : “ As  high  as  Providence  will  permit  and  as 
low  as  necessity  compels.”  During  this  present  winter  a company 
of  estimable  gentlemen,  over  a supper  table  in  a Murray  Hill 
mansion,  settled  between  themselves  the  amount  of  coal  that 
should  be  mined  during  the  coming  season.  Do  you,  with  child- 
like innocence,  imagine  that  this  quantity  was  determined  by  the 
needs  of  their  fellow  beings  ? Round  them  a few  hundred  thou- 
sand people  were  buying  coal  by  the  basket  full,  paying  at  the  rate 
of  from  $15  to  $20  a ton.  These  excellent  gentlemen,  however, 
had  no  eye  upon  this  aspect  of  the  case,  but  were  simply  consider- 
ing how  to  gain  the  largest  dividends  for  their  companies. 

The  State  has  thus  left  in  the  hands  of  a.  few  individuals  the 
power  of  imposing  a most  oppressive  taxation  upon  a prime  neces- 
sity of  life ; the  power  of  lowering  the  real  wages  of  labor  and 
shrinking  the  profits  of  capital,  through  the  depression  caused  in 
the  general  demand  by  this  needless  taxation.  Coal  is  but  one  of 
the  mineral  resources  of  the  earth.  Copper,  lead,  iron,  oil — 
indispensable  all  to  our  industrial  life,  are  thus  the  monopolies  of 
individuals  instead  of  being  the  common  wealth  of  the  people  at 
large.  We  may  not  perhaps  be  able  to  make  any  retroactive 
legislation  concerning  the  properties  already  allowed  to  pass  into 
private  hands,  but  there  are  vast  treasures  of  nature  yet  to  be 
opened. 


Imagine  what  immense  resources  the  State  would  command  for 
the  people  at  large  if  the  profits  drawn  from  the  mines  of  the  future 
were  to  pass  into  its  control.  Every  higher  need  of  the  nation, 
which  now  languishes,  would  be  richly  fed.  We  should  be  able  to 
put  education  upon  foundations  such  as  it  has  never  known ; to 
endow  scientific  research,  and  thus  stimulate  the  growth  of  wealth 
beyond  even  our  dreams,  to  provide  for  the  people  free  museums 
and  libraries  and  art  galleries  and  parks  and  advantages  of  every 
kind  such  as  have  hitherto  only  been  found  in  Utopia. 

If  any  one  objects  to  entrust  such  large  resources  to  the  State, 
as  we  may  all  well  do  at  present,  the  danger  could  be  avoided  by 
the  Government’s  running  mines  on  a cost  basis,  and  thus  lowering 
the  prices  of  coal  and  other  necessities  immensely — whereby  a 
better  distribution  of  wealth,  would  be  facilitated  while  stimulating 
a larger  industrial  productivity.  And  if  we  fear  to  cumber  the  State 
with  such  large  affairs,  the  working  of  the  mines  could  be  let  out  to 
individuals  or  companies,  on  terms  securing  the  interest  of  the 
people  at  large. 

My  interest  in  this  special  suggestion  grows  not  alone  out  of 
the  immense  benefits  to  be  derived  directly  from  its  adoption,  but 
out  of  the  more  immense  benefits  to  follow  indirectly  in  its  train. 
The  right  of  the  people  at  large  to  the  control  of  the  mineral  re- 
sources of  the  earth  holds  the  principle  of  the  right  of  the  people  at 
large  to  control  the  tenure  of  land — the  raw  material  of  all  wealth. 
The  natural  resources  of  the  earth  in  every  form  need  to  be  held 
in  the  interests  of  the  commonwealth. 

Land  is  the  prime  factor  in  the  production  of  all  wealth. 
Capital  and  labor  alike  are  dependent  upon  it.  It  thrives  upon 
the  growth  of  capital  and  labor,  and  in  industrial  centres  tends  to 
absorb  the  profits  of  both.  This  is  a simple  fact  which  can  readily 
be  tested  by  any  study  of  our  present  society.  Land  is  a limited 
quantity.  There  is  just  so  much  of  it — about  thirty  acres  for  every 
man,  woman  and  child  in  this  country  to-day.  You  cannot  increase 
that  land,  though  of  course  you  can  make  it  more  highly  produc- 
tive. It  does  not  therefore  come  under  the  regulation  of  competi- 
tion. It  is  necessarily  of  the  nature  of  a monopoly.  As  every  other 
monopoly,  it  demands  therefore  the  control  of  the  State,  that  the 
monopoly  may  be  that  of  the  people  at  large  and  not  that  of  indi- 
viduals. 

Society  has  the  undoubted  right  to  revise  its  laws  at  any  time, 
as  the  interests  of  the  people  shall  demand.  The  time  is  coming 
rapidly  in  the  old  world  for  such  a revision.  We  have  a longer  day 
of  grace  in  this  country,  but  sooner  or  later  we  shall  find  that  pros- 
perity for  the  people  can  be  secured  alone  by  the  control  of  the 
tenure  of  land  in  the  interests  of  the  commonwealth. 

Facts  are  more  suggestive  than  any  amount  of  talk.  In  1802, 
the  Mechanics’  and  Traders’  Society  of  New  York  purchased  from 
ex-May  or  Varick  the  25  x 99  lot  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Broad- 


way  and,  what  is  now  Park  Place,  The  cost  of  this  lot  at  that 
time  was  $11,500.  To-day,  with  the  same  improvements  which 
it  had  in  1802,  it  is  worth  $200,000.  Rented  at  six  per  cent,  net  on 
this  valuation,  the  society  has  an  income  on  its  investment  of  over 
100  per  cent,  per  annum.  A one-roomed  store  at  the  corner  of  our 
street  rents  for  $3,000  per  annum.  More  than  half  the  arable  land 
of  California  is  owned  by  one  hundred  men.  Take  now  a State  mid- 
way between  the  geographical  extremes  and  we  shall  find  that 
Illinois,  with  a smaller  population  than  Scotland,  has  nearly  20,000 
more  tenant  farmers.  In  Springfield  there  are  some  200  residents 
living  upon  their  rent-rolls  as  landlords  of  farm  properties.  One 
man  who  lives  in  England  owns  40,000  acres  in  one  county  of 
Illinois,  from  which  he  draws  a rental  of  over  $100,000  per  annum. 
It  would  seem  that  the  time  had  already  come  for  us  to  control 
speculative  dealing  in  land,  and  at  least  to  raise  the  question  of 
regulating  the  normal  rate  of  rent,  as  we  now  regulate  the  normal 
rate  of  interest. 

The  so-called  Mosaic  legislation  leads  us  back  to  the  ultimate 
factor  in  the  solution  of  the  social  problem.  The  land  is  Jehovah’s. 
It  must  vest  in  Him.  It  must  not  be  allowed  to  become  the  mono- 
poly of  the  few.  It  must  be  the  common  heritage  of  Jehovah’s 
people,  “ to  the  end  that  there  be  no  poor  among  you.”  As  Seneca 
long  ago  said  : “ While  nature  lay  in  common,  and  all  her  benefits 
were  promiscuously  enjoyed,  what  could  be  happier  than  the  state 
of  mankind,  when  people  lived  without  avarice  and  envy  ? What 
could  be  richer  than  when  there  was  not  a poor  man  to  be  found  in 
the  world  ? So  soon  as  this  impartial  bounty  of  Providence  came  to 
be  restrained  by  covetousness,  so  soon  as  individuals  appropriated 
that  to  themselves  which  was  intended  for  all,  then  did  poverty 
creep  into  the  world.” 

These  are  some  of  the  suggestions  which  I offer,  not  as  being 
at  all  novel  but  as  having  for  the  most  part  a higher  value  than  that 
of  originality — the  authority  of  a growing  consensus  of  the  thought- 
ful students  of  our  social  problem. 

Such  seem  to  me  to  be  some  of  the  points  for  which  we  are 
to  make,  if  we  would  find  the  way  out  of  our  present  serious  situa- 
tion. I may  be  doubtless  confused  in  my  look  ahead  and  may 
mistake  the  bearings  of  the  true  pathway  over  the  mountain ; but 
the  general  trend  of  the  course  1 think  has  been  truly  indicated. 
In  some  such  direction  lies  the  way  out.  As  we  push  on  we  shall 
correct  whatever  mistakes  we  may  have  made  in  looking  ahead. 
Let  us  then  push  on  with  a mighty  will  and  an  unfaltering  assurance 
that  there  is  some  pathway  over  the  glaciers  and  precipices  into  the 
sunny  fields  of  the  promised  land. 

Not  in  vain,  O Humanity,  hast  thou  cherished  through  long 
ages  of  darkness  this  high  hope  of  a good  time  coming  ! Not  in 


63 


vain  hast  thou  heroically  toiled  onward,  as  toward  some  better 
country,  through  blinding  mists,  against  chilling  winds,  over  flinty 
pathways  where  every  step  has  been  a wound ! Not  in  vain  have  thy 
prophet-sons  climbed  ever  and  anon  some  projecting  summit,  and, 
with  eyes  lighted  up  with  the  vision  of  the  land  beyond,  sung  down 
to  thee  their  strains  of  joyous  reassurance!  Sure  instinct  of  the 
human  heart — the  day  is  coming  when  its  purpose  shall  be  vindi- 
cated ; as  over  the  desolate  mountains  the  weary  hosts  of  earth’s 
toilers  descend  and  find  themselves  amid  the  vineyards  and  the  olive 
groves  of  the  land  of  peace  and  plenty. 

Behold  the  seal  of  this  hope,  the  sacrament  of  this  faith  in  the 
memorial  of  the  man  who  came  upon  our  earth  preaching  this 
gospel : “ The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.”  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  to  come  upon  our  world — his  will  is  to  be  done  here  on 
earth  as  it  is  done  in  the  heavens.  The  Holy  Communion  of  the 
children  of  the  All-Father  is  to  grow  around  it  the  Free  Common- 
wealth of  the  human  brotherhood — that  true  Communism  of  which 
we  are  led  to  think  of  in  this  Whitsuntide  ; of  which  the  prophecy 
was  written  in  this  ancient  record  : “ and  the  multitude  of  them 

that  believed  were  of  one  heart  and  of  one  soul : neither  said  any 
of  them  that  aught  of  the  things  which  he  possessed  was  his  own  ; 
but  they  had  all  things  in  common.  Neither  was  there  any  among 
them  that  lacked  : for  as  many  as  were  possessors  of  land  or 
houses  sold  them  and  brought  the  prices  of  the  things  that  were 
sold  and  laid  them  down  at  the  apostles’  feet : and  distribution 
was  made  unto  every  man  according  as  he  had  need,2’ 


The  Sermons  of  Rev.  R.  HEBER 


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